Along the Underground Railroad

In his author’s note to his debut novel, Kai Thomas describes his “relationship to the Indigenous peoples of the lands I called home” and how his thinking about that connection has evolved over time: “I knew and had seen many stories that were concerned with the relationships between black and white people, and similarly, between Indigenous and white people. And of course, between whites and any other people of colour. But I couldn’t think of a single story I knew that meaningfully explored black and Indigenous relationships.” So he set out to fill this void with a well researched and compelling work of historical fiction.

The resulting book opens in July 1859, in what would become southwestern Ontario. Situated near Chatham and Windsor, the fictional village of Dunmore is a hub on the Underground Railroad — and increasingly populated by Black refugees fleeing the American South...