Summary, Analysis, and Review of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad PLEASE NOTE: This is a key takeaways and analysis of the book and NOT the original book. Start Publishing Notes' Summary, Analysis, and Review of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad A Novel includes a summary of the book, review, analysis & key takeaways, and a detailed About the Author section. PREVIEW: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead is a novel about Cora, an enslaved woman in Georgia who escapes from a plantation and heads north. Although it is loosely based on real slave narratives, it also includes fantastic and ahistorical elements. For example, the historical Underground Railroad was a network, which helped slaves escape, but, in the novel, the Underground Railroad is a buried railway line.