''Underground Airlines'' is a 2016 novel by
Ben Winters which is set in a contemporary
alternate-history United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
where the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
never occurred because
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
was
assassinated
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have a ...
prior to
his 1861 inauguration and a version of the
Crittenden Compromise
The Crittenden Compromise was an unsuccessful proposal to permanently enshrine slavery in the United States Constitution, and thereby make it unconstitutional for future congresses to end slavery. It was introduced by United States Senator Jo ...
was adopted instead. As a result,
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
has remained legal in the "Hard Four" (a group of
Southern states that have kept slavery):
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
,
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
,
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
and a unified
Carolina. Its name evokes the
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...
in relations to its setting. The novel attracted praise for exploring racism through the alternate-history mechanism.
Plot
The novel is narrated by Victor, a former
Person Bound to Labor ('peeb') who, after escaping the Hard Four, has been forced to work as an undercover agent for U.S. Marshal Bridge, infiltrating and gathering evidence to prosecute fellow escapees and the people and organisations helping peebs escape slavery. If Victor refuses to help, the agent has threatened to return him to the plantation from which he escaped; and he can be tracked by a device implanted in his spine if he tries to run.
As the novel opens, Victor is tracking down the peeb escapee Jackdaw, whose last known whereabouts have led Victor to
Indianapolis. His trail ends at Saint Anselm's
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
Promise, a seemingly derelict community center run by Father Barton. Victor poses as Jim Dirkson, a consultant for Indonesian cell carrier Sulawesi Digital, looking to expand into the United States, seeking to get his wife Gentle out of the Carolina plantation in which she is enslaved and into Little America, a suburb of
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
mainly populated by
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
in exile.
Victor befriends Martha, a white woman with a mixed-race child, after they are ejected from a hotel for stealing from the breakfast buffet. Eventually, Victor locates Jackdaw, who is revealed to be a freeborn African-American college student named Kevin. He was sent by Barton to infiltrate Garments of the Greater South, Inc., purportedly to expose how they have been illegally selling slave-made goods to the rest of the United States (where such goods are unlawful) through shell companies located in
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
. Barton contends that this explosive revelation could bring down slavery, or at least assassinate the credibility of its proponents.
Kevin, however, refuses to give up the location of the 'evidence' unless they also extract a slave girl he'd fallen for during his year behind the Fence. In a commotion, he is shot dead by an Indianapolis police officer who is working with Father Barton after he became enraged at the news that the girl was probably dead. Victor is then coerced by Father Barton to go back to GGSI to retrieve the intel.
Victor deduces something larger is at play and gets Martha to play his 'Missus' through the slavery-embracing Hard Four states so they can investigate GGSI. Martha, for her part, is seeking access to Torchlight; a centralized registry of every Person Bound to Labor in the United States - specifically, she wants to find out what happened to Samson, her son's father. Victor decides to double-cross Father Barton, and makes another deal with Bridge. He does not believe the intelligence being retrieved would make any difference, and decides to use the
U.S. Marshal Service
The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of Justice, operating under the direction of the Attorney General, but serves as the enforcem ...
to secure his own freedom. Bridge is compelled to play along after Victor bluffs about the damaging nature of the evidence to the Service.
At the Fence, Victor disguises himself as Martha's slave, endures a dehumanizing inspection by Internal Border and Regulation agents, and the two make their way to Green Hollow, Alabama. In Green Hollow, Victor sends Martha back north and meets up with former peebs who hide out at a sympathetic old white lawyer's mansion; he is accommodated there as he prepares to insert himself into GGSI.
Martha unexpectedly returns to Victor's side, and they succeed in infiltrating GGSI's HQ, obtaining the intel as well as information on Samson. He and Martha are unexpectedly abducted by
IMPD Officer Cook, one of Father Barton's colleagues from Indianapolis. It turns out that Cook, like Victor, is also an undercover agent for the Marshal Service; he betrays both Father Barton and Victor to secure his own freedom. In the ensuing struggle, Cook is shot dead.
When confronted by Victor, Father Barton reveals that the evidence is much more horrifying: GGSI has been experimenting with the eggs of female slaves to genetically produce a new line of slaves who can be legally classified as non-humans. Victor pretends to co-operate with Barton. Telling Bridge he has the intel, they rendezvous in a makeshift operating tent off of a highway, so his tracking implant can be removed and Bridge can give him a new identity. During the exchange, however, Barton and his comrades ambush Bridge, killing the medical technician he'd brought along, and is about to kill Bridge, when Victor says to spare him instead. In gratitude, Bridge removes the implant himself, and Victor passes out, waking up to an empty tent.
The novel ends with the undercover Victor and Martha in Chicago, checking into the HQ of the elevator company that contracts with GGSI - plotting sabotage.
Development history
Winters cites
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel ''Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote ''Shadow and Act'' (1964), a collecti ...
's ''
Invisible Man
''Invisible Man'' is a novel by Ralph Ellison, published by Random House in 1952. It addresses many of the social and intellectual issues faced by African Americans in the early twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship b ...
'' as a strong influence on the finished novel.
Recognition
The novel was a finalist for the 2017 Chautauqua Prize, the 2017 Southern Book Prize, the 2017 International Thriller Award, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year. The book won the 2016
Sidewise Award for Alternate History
The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year.
Overview
The awards take their name from the 1934 short story "Sidewise in Time" by Murray Leinster, in wh ...
.
Publication history
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Cover art
The United States hardback edition cover was designed by Oliver Munday.
An alternative cover for the UK edition featured a background with the stars and bars from the
Confederate Battle Flag
The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs during the American Civil War. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", used from 1861 to 1863; the "Stainless Banner", used from 1863 to 1865; and ...
.
Reception
In an early review,
Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...
called the novel's premise "worthy of
Philip K. Dick ... smart and well-paced." The book debuted on the
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
hardcover best-seller list at #20, and was ranked #11 on the Indie Bestsellers list.
Charles Finch
Charles Finch (born 1980) is an American author and literary critic. He has written a series of mystery novels set in Victorian era England, as well as literary fiction and numerous essays and book reviews.
Life and career
Finch was born in N ...
wrote, in a review for ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...
'', the novel had a "rather prosaic plotline" and "many of
he novel's
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
big turns are anticlimactic" but overall, it was "a swift, smart, angry new novel
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
illuminates all the ways that slavery has endured into the present day — by depicting an alternate world in which it has endured" and called it an astonishing feat of world-building.
In a review for ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', Jon Michaud found the "alternate history that does not feel fully realised
nits rendering of popular culture" was "slightly distracting" but overall, the novel was a success "because its fiction is disturbingly close to our present reality." Many reviewers probed the novel's premise and found it reasonable.
Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan is an American author, scholar, and literary critic. She is the book critic on the NPR radio program ''Fresh Air'' and writes for the "Book World" section of ''The Washington Post''. In 2014, she wrote ''So We Read On'', a book ...
, writing for
National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
, called the novel "one suspenseful tale filled with double crosses and dangerous expeditions" set in "a disturbing but plausible alternate reality for the United States."
Kathryn Schulz
Kathryn Schulz is an American journalist and author. She is a staff writer at ''The New Yorker''. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her article on the risk of a major earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific Northwest.
B ...
, reviewing the novel for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', said "Winters gets the balance right. He is careful to set up a plausible case for how history shifted off-kilter ... and he paints a convincing picture of what fugitive life would look like in our own era.
Racial controversy
A profile in ''The New York Times'' called the novel "creatively and professionally risky" for Winters, as fellow author
Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman (born June 26, 1969) is an American novelist and journalist who wrote ''The Magicians Trilogy'': '' The Magicians'' (2009), '' The Magician King'' (2011), and '' The Magician's Land'' (2014). He was the book critic and lead technolog ...
was quoted describing Winters as "fearless" for being "a white writer going after questions of what it's like to be black in America."
Corrigan wrote that a white author imagining the thoughts and experiences of a black character was potentially controversial.
Other critics of the ''Times'' profile felt that Winters was being unfairly lionised, especially since the themes of science fiction, racism and slavery had in fact been explored before, most notably by African-American author
Octavia Butler
Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction author and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. ...
in her 1979 novel
''Kindred''.
Winters had already acknowledged Butler's influence in a blog post published three weeks before the profile in the ''Times''.
Adaptation
Winters has written the pilot script for a television adaptation.
References
External links
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Reviews
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* {{cite web , url=https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2016/09/underground-airlines-is-one-of-the-bleakest-alternate-histories-ever/ , title=''Underground Airlines'' is one of the bleakest alternate histories ever , author=Anders, Charlie Jane , author-link=Charlie Jane Anders , date=4 September 2016 , website=Ars Technica , access-date=4 March 2017
2016 American novels
American alternate history novels
Novels about American slavery
Novels set in the United States
Novels set in the 21st century
American Civil War alternate histories
Sidewise Award for Alternate History winning works
Novels set in Indianapolis
Mulholland Books books