“She had seen men hung from trees and left for buzzards and cows. Bodies alive and dead roasted on pyres. Feet cut off to prevent escape and hands cut off to escape theft… before the slave part of her caught up with the human part of her, she was bent over the boy’s body as a shield,” novelist Colson Whitehead read from his 2016 book “The Underground Railroad,” a New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2016 National Book Award for fiction. Whitehead adjusted his glasses as he gazed out to the nearly full auditorium on February 28 during his sold-out reading.

The event was sponsored by the Family Action Network (FAN) – a North Shore-based speaker series that hosts free events open to the public. Initially, the idea to establish a relationship between Parker and FAN came from parent and alum Shawnelle Richie who introduced Interim Head of Upper School and Assistant Principal Ruth Jurgensen to FAN executive director Lanie Stanisher. Stanisher was particularly attracted to Parker’s auditorium, which is a premier space in Chicago.

“She said, ‘Colson Whitehead is coming to the area, would you like access to some of his time?’” Jurgensen said. “Of course yes–he’s a National Book Award winner, phenomenal writer–you know of course we want to hear from him if we have the opportunity. To hear from someone like that is always a treat.”

The decision to connect with FAN and bring Whitehead to Parker was a chance for Parker to interact with different people and bring renowned speakers to students, families, and faculty, according to Jurgensen.  English teacher and department chair Theresa Collins agrees.  “It helps maintain Parker’s position in this community as a place that values the humanities and the written word,” she said, “and joining in the conversation with the artists who produce books about what they do and why they do it and what their hopes are in their artistic productions.”

Throughout all 45 minutes of Whitehead’s speech, the audience – made up of Parker parents, teachers, students, and visitors from across the country – was alive with nods, “mmms,” and laughter. He first discussed his childhood in Manhattan where he spent his free time watching ‘The Twilight Zone’ and reading ‘Spiderman,’ ‘The X-Men,’ and Stephen King. “It seemed like in fifth grade, being a writer could be a cool job,” Whitehead said. “You could write about Peter Parker, you could work from home, you don’t have to talk to anybody, and you could just make up stuff all day.”

After graduating Harvard University and writing for “The Village Voice” in New York City for five years, Whitehead had met multiple forms of rejection. “I thought maybe I wasn’t cut out for this writing,” Whitehead said. “I tried to think about what else I might be able to do. And here I point your attention to my slender, delicate fingers and feminine wrists.” He held up both hands, rotating them. “These are hands that say pianist, hand model, surgeon. ‘Are those professions that I may be suited for?’” Instead of taking one of those routes, Whitehead embraced his artistic DNA – DNA from hundreds of years of “creative and artistic humans surviving and getting together.” And so he had no choice but to get back to work and start over.

And so in 1999, Whitehead published his first book, “The Intuitionist,” followed by five more award-winning books. Each book represents a different genre such as coming of age, noir mystery, zombie horror, nonfiction, historical fiction, and humor, but all focus, in some way, on the current and historical experiences of black people in America.

“I like the language of his work,” Collins said. “He makes sentences that I completely get lost in. He makes me laugh, he makes me think, he sends me to the dictionary all the time.”

Towards the end of the lecture, the crowd grew more silent as the focus in the room shifted onto Whitehead’s every word while he read two passages from “The Underground Railroad,” a book about a slave named Cora who escapes from a cotton plantation in Georgia and travels North on a literal network of underground trains and stations. Each state she enters represents, as Whitehead explained, “a different state of American possibility.”  

Within the seven pages Whitehead read out of the 306 page book, the passages were packed with powerful language that brought strong messages to the audience. The predominately white crowd grew especially quiet as he read, “And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes – believes with all its heart – that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn’t exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty.”

The idea for “The Underground Railroad” came to Whitehead 17 years ago while he was sitting on a couch and recalling the physical subway he envisioned when his fourth grade teacher introduced the underground railroad. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be a weird idea if the underground railroad was a literal railroad?’” Whitehead said. “I held off writing the book at the time. I knew back then that I would screw it up.  If I wrote some more books and became a better writer, if I was older, more mature, I might be able to bring the wisdom of my age to my material and pull it off the way it deserved.”

Junior Moré Fabiyi, who volunteered at the event, is currently reading the book. “In general, his writing in ‘The Underground Railroad’ is oddly somber,” Fabiyi said. “I thought he was going to be different and so when he came on stage, he seemed so happy and willing to talk about this, which seems very different, especially when you’re writing a book about ‘The Underground Railroad’ and slavery. I really appreciated how comedic he was during the whole event because it was a very heavy topic and also he handled the questions really well because there were some really weird questions in the mix.”

During the 25 minute question and answer period, someone asked about the accuracy of his book, and someone else went on a political sidetrack, ending the question by giving the address to his Communist website. Another person spoke about her lack of knowledge about Frederick Douglass.  

Before his 7:00pm lecture, Whitehead attended a reception in the library where he spoke to and posed for photos with the English department faculty, parents, students, and friends of the Parker community. Whitehead had flown into Chicago on Monday, and had already given talks at Evanston Township High School and Loyola University of Chicago. He was also a speaker at the “Racial Civil Rights” seminar day at New Trier High School, an event that has gained national attention from some parents’ objection.

During the reception, Whitehead had the opportunity to speak to Jurgensen, who would hang out with Whitehead during graduate school at Brown University.  “From knowing him then, I’ve been around people who have fulfilled their vision with the choices they’ve made.” Jurgensen said. “They’ve worked really hard, they’ve gone to great schools, they’re passionate about their work in their field, and Colson is one of those people. He embodies what a passionate learner looks like, and people like that are really amazing.”

Jurgensen also noted, Parker’s new relationship with FAN is only going to expand and create more opportunities in the future. The school is looking to host a prominent senator for the end of April, and is also working on bringing congressman and Civil Rights activist John Lewis in May.