They head for South Carolina, which has recently abolished slavery as much of the South knows it, instead opting to make all enslaved people the property of the state government, which provides them with food, shelter, and medical care in exchange for their labor. Together, Cora and Caesar make their way to the Underground Railroad: a massive subway system that runs all the way from the Deep South to the north side of the Mason-Dixon line. They run away with a third person, Cora’s friend Lovey, but are separated when Lovey is captured by slavecatchers and returned, presumably, to the Randall brothers. Cora makes her own desperate flight when Caesar, another enslaved man on the property, approaches her with a plan to escape.

Set in the antebellum American South, The Underground Railroad centers on Cora: an enslaved young woman who has grown up alone on the Randall plantation in Georgia, ever since her mother, Mabel, left her behind to make a break for freedom. Major spoilers for The Underground Railroad follow. Now, Whitehead’s story is coming to Prime Video as a limited series directed by Barry Jenkins ( Moonlight), which means it’s time to revisit how the Underground Railroad book ends.

Released early as an Oprah’s Book Club pick in September 2016, the bestseller went on to win a number of awards, including the National Book Award, Carnegie Medal, and the Pulitzer Prize. Take Colson Whitehead’s sixth novel, The Underground Railroad, for example. Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how big of a splash a book made upon its release.

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