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octavia_cade 's review for:
The Lincoln Train
by Maureen F. McHugh
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
This was extremely interesting, with a sympathetic protagonist who, the story argues, does not entirely deserve the sympathy. It's set in the aftermath of the US Civil War, and white populations from the South are being made into refugees, forced at gunpoint onto trains to be taken to camps in the North. Clara, the protagonist, is seventeen and absolutely destitute, having lost both mother and supplies in the stampede at the train station. She's rescued by Quakers, who are saving as many people as they can from camps and starvation through a version of the Underground Railroad, although "as many as they can" is vanishingly few. Clara's so young and alone that it's easy to feel sorry for her, although, as the Quakers point out, she and others like her were slave-owners. The Quakers don't want to fight the evil of slavery with the evil of internment camps, but that doesn't mean that they enjoy helping those who were complicit in human misery and suffering. Is Clara complicit? Their household owned slaves. Technically, those slaves would have belonged to Clara's mother, but Clara's mother has dementia, so responsibility falls on her almost-adult daughter. How much responsibility, and to what ends? It's a really compelling take, and works perfectly as a short story. I think a lot of the punch would be lost if this were longer.