Suppose Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in Indianapolis on his way to his first inauguration. That’s exactly what former Indianapolis writer Ben Winters did. His new novel, Underground Airlines, is the result of this imaginative leap.
It opens with the protagonist, Victor, speaking with a young pastor who may or may not be involved in the slave rescue organization, the Underground Airlines. Victor is requesting that the group rescue his girlfriend from one of the slave holding states. It doesn’t take the reader long to learn that Victor doesn’t have a girlfriend who needs to be rescued and Victor is something else altogether. As Winters skillfully leads the reader through the layers of secrets in Victor’s life, the reader also learns of the series of compromises that prevented the civil war and set up a new American and World order.
Nothing in this novel is quite what it seems. Victor is Winters’ take on the thirties style noir detective who peels back the layers of others’ lives and society as we learn about his layers. The four slave holding states in the Deep South are worse than imagined. The non slave holding states and multi-national corporations are complicit in the slavery and racism. Everyone is guilty.
Winters is an exceptional writer, as anyone who read his Last Policeman series, knows. He draws believable multi-faceted characters. Winters puts in interesting touches like the Monument in Monument Circle being topped by a statue of Abraham Lincoln. Underground Airlines pulls the reader into the rabbit hole and keeps pulling till the reader is completely submersed in this imaginary America.
This book does not tell the facts of slavery and our current racial relations. It does, however, tell the truth. And an ugly truth it is.
