Washington Black

Written by Esi Edugyan

Narrated by Dion Graham

When two English brothers take the helm of a Barbados sugar plantation, Washington Black—an 11-year-old field slave—finds himself selected as personal servant to one of these men. The eccentric Christopher 'Titch' Wilde is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor and abolitionist whose single-minded pursuit of the perfect aerial machine mystifies all around him.

Titch's idealistic plans are soon shattered, and Washington finds himself in mortal danger. They escape the island together, but then then Titch disappears and Washington must make his way alone, following the promise of freedom further than he ever dreamed possible.

From the blistering cane fields of Barbados to the icy wastes of the Canadian Arctic, from the mud-drowned streets of London to the eerie deserts of Morocco, Washington Black teems with all the strangeness and mystery of life. Inspired by a true story, Washington Black is the extraordinary tale of a world destroyed and made whole again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Little, Brown (Hachette UK) Audio
• Release date: Aug 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781782835141

Esi Edugyan

Esi Edugyan has a Masters in Writing from Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. Her work has appeared in several anthologies, including Best New American Voices 2003, edited by Joyce Carol Oates, and Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writing (2006). Her debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, was published internationally. It was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, was a More Book Lust selection, and was chosen by the New York Public Library as one of 2004's Books to Remember. Her novel Half-Blood Blues won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a finalist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. Edugyan has held fellowships in the US, Scotland, Iceland, Germany, Hungary, Finland, Spain and Belgium. She has taught creative writing at both Johns Hopkins University and the University of Victoria. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

Reviews for Washington Black

[lycomayflower · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

CA: slavery and all the brutality and violence thereof, suicide, violence, mild body horror, execution, period-appropriate racist languageThis tale of a young enslaved boy in Barbados who is taken in and educated by the brother of the man enslaving him was by turns fascinating and... not as fascinating. The first half of the book or so had me completely engaged--the setting was vivid and the strange almost-friendship between Wash and Titch was compelling. But at the half-way point, when Titch disappears, leaving Wash to wonder what happened to him and to search for him, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, for years, the story just got duller--both in terms of the interest I had in it and in the words, the telling. This was, I guess, half a five-star read and half a three-star read, and if the halves had been reversed, I probably would have been thrilled with the book. As it was, it was a slight letdown, but still something I'm still glad I read. Some of the sentence-level writing is simply gorgeous, and Edugyan has hit on a balance between not shying away from the brutality of her subject and keeping the depiction of that brutality bearable enough to read the work and gain something from the telling.

[japaul22 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm so glad I picked up this creative and captivating novel. I remember it coming out in 2019 and being intrigued, but uneven reviews kept it on the backburner. I really enjoyed it, though, so I'm glad I finally read it. Washington Black is a young slave on Barbados when he is chosen by his owner's brother to aid in his experiments. Christopher Wilde is a scientist and is working on a "cloud cutter", which seems like an early hot air balloon. Wilde, called Titch, initially chooses Wash because of his small size, but quickly finds out that Wash is an intelligent boy who learns quickly and is a gifted artist as well. The two end up escaping Barbados and Washington travels to Virginia, the Arctic, London, and Morocco, meeting friends and enemies along the way. I was sucked right in to Edugyan's writing style and how she mixed the brutal reality of the life of the enslaved with the fanciful, creative world of science and experimentation in the 1800s. She had me all the way to the end . . . until the very last page where I'm sad to say I was really disappointed in the ending. I got what she was trying to do (there's some parallel symbolism to something that happens earlier to a different character) but it felt abrupt and out of character for Washington. Anyway, I'd still recommend this because I really did love it overall. I will put her other books on my library wish list.

[mercef_9 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Despite being a Booker prize winner, I quite liked this book. Not my usual style at all - reminded me of a Huck Finn style boys' own adventure novel. There's a bit of everything thrown in here - eccentric inventions, Barbados, slavery, Antarctica, aquariums. I really don't know what to make of this book. 3 and a half stars rounded down because yet again, I'm confused by the ending.

[streamsong_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Washington Black was born a slave on a Barbados sugar cane plantation. Even as a young child, his days under slavery were brutal.But after the old master passed away, his master’s younger son, Titch, took an interest in Wash. Titch deemed Wash as the right ballast weight for his ‘cloud cutter’ flying machine, a lighter than air vehicle filled with hydrogen gas.Titch is a scientific dilettante. Wash slowly develops an amazing talent illustrating Titch’s sea creatures and scientific plans.Forced to use the cloud-cutter to attempt an escape from Barbados, they wander the world, together and separately. I have trouble connecting the first part of the book where Wash is a slave to the second part, where he searches for his post slavery destiny. Several reviewers connect this second part with the first by saying that Wash (and even the white characters) find freedom hard to find. This just doesn’t ring true to me, since the realities of slavery don’t compare with the vagaries of searching for freedom in a non-slave life.

[venarain-354758 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Amazing and engrossing. Occasionally unnecessarily dense, but really wonderful

[janepat-619237 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This remarkable journey of a an 11 year old boy out of slavery is inspiring and informative. I loved the book.

[fionaanne · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was entertaining enough to warrant a 4th star but there's no historical note and I consider that bad form. Ultimately didn't live up to the hype, imho, but that applies to most things in life.

[write5review · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Young Mr. Black Excels

Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black is at once at tale human cruelty, of adventure, and most of all that of a fantastical journey both physically and developmentally, a bildungsroman that spans half the globe, from Barbados, to the Arctic, from there to Nova Scotia, then to England, and finally Morocco. It follows and allows George Washington Black to tell his story of escape from slavery, his intellectual growth, his loss of and disillusionment with his benefactor, his fear of being constantly hunted, his discovery of love, and his quest to be treated as a man, a man as free as the next man. It’s a novel with something for most everyone related in a formal tone approximating that of the period, 1830-1836.

George Washington Black is an eleven-year-old slave on Faith Plantation, Barbados, owned by cruel master Erasmus Wilde. Erasmus enforces his authority and the dehumanization of his slaves with bursts of extreme cruelty. However, the even greater cruelty of slavery is absolute control over an individual’s life, often expressed by Black. Into Black’s life comes Christopher Wilde, known as Titch, Erasmus’ brother. Titch, a man of loose and wandering feet, needs help constructing and launching his Cloud Cutter, a lighter than air aerostat lifted by hydrogen gas. He selects Black as his assistant, seeing him at first as suitable ballast and later recognizing great possibilities in the child. Right he is, as Black demonstrates an astonishing facility with drawing, exact reproductions highly valued in the science of the day, on the cusp of photography. Black learns and grows both intellectually and in his attachment to Titch, while together they build the aerostat. This endeavor, though, proves costly to Black, as a hydrogen explosion leaves him with terrible facial scarring.

All is not well in the Wilde family, meanwhile, as we learn early on. Erasmus is resentful of being the steadfast one to Titch’s galavanting dilettante. Then Philip, the brothers’ cousin, lands on the plantation. He proves to be something of a fop, his strongest interest being food and its masterful preparation. Deep down, though, he is troubled, the source of which Black discovers much later in Morocco. He relates to the brothers the death of their father, a noted man of science, in the Arctic. One day, he bids Black to accompany him to the site from where Titch plans to launch the aerostat. In Black’s presence, Philip kills himself by blowing his brains out. Black panics, Titch panics, and the pair flee in the aerostat in the face of an approaching storm. With some artful maneuvering (remember that word above, fantastical) by Titch, they manage to avoid death in the storm by landing on the deck of a commercial schooner. While on the schooner, Titch, in disbelief of his father’s death, devises a plan seek him out in the Arctic. Black comes along.

Eventually, Titch, it seems, deserts Black in the Arctic, leaving Black to fend for himself, which he does with great fear and suffering in Nova Scotia. It’s here, though, that he meets Tanna Goff and her marine biologist father, and his life turns yet again. He develops an interest in sea life and after the Goffs return to England with him along, he develops even further both intellectually and emotionally, and eventually comes to recognize his worth as an intellect and a man, a man willing to speak up for himself and claim what is rightfully his, the result of his own physical and intellectual labor. But for all that, he can’t shake Titch’s abandonment. He and Tanna search him out, find him in Morocco on another scientific and artistic pursuit, nascent photography. Black confronts him on the matter and with his answer the novel ends.

If you are in the mood for something that blends historical fiction with adventure, that reminds us all of the cruelty humanity can inflict upon itself in the name of race, that makes us aware of all the world has lost, what we are losing yet, by not lifting everybody up, then Washington Black is the novel for you. Shortlisted for the Man-Booker, the novel also won the Canadian Giller Prize.

[jjbooklvr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this for my two book discussions I am leading this month. There is a lot to talk about and it should be a lively discussion!

[starbox_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not at all what I expected! Narrated by a slave boy on a brutal plantation in Barbados, we move from a grim opening ...into magic realism...balloons rides, London's first giant aquarium, the snowcovered wastes of the Arctic and the deserts of Morocco...You have to suspend disbelief and keep on reading- there's enough of depth and human emotion to keep it quite compelling. And while narrator, Wash, is the leading character, we get pretty caught up in hise fascinating, but never fully understood saviour (?) and friend, the scientist brother of his cruel ex-master......Entirely original.

[jgmencarini · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Go buy this book immediately. Savor its beautiful and terrible imagery, the gorgeous language evoking horror and love all at once. The story is captivating and heartbreaking. Go read it right now!

[bell7_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Young George Washington Black - Wash to those who know him well - grows up in slavery on a plantation on Barbados, but his life takes a start turn when his master's brother Christopher "Titch" Wilde takes him under his wing in his scientific endeavors, discovering that young Wash has a talent for drawing.Covering multiple years and continents and narrated by Wash himself, this coming-of-age tale explores the nature of relationships and how, no matter how much Titch liked Wash, their relationship could never be a true, equal friendship when one man held all the power. Wash's adventures in the world fascinated me from beginning to end.

[rab1953-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book explores the complications of freedom in a hostile world. Freedom from slavery and oppression are obviously highly desirable, and Edugyan shows how destructive plantation slavery was. The everyday fear of brutal punishment for not working well enough or for talking back undermines the slaves’ consciousness and sense of identity. They are treated as objects and don’t even know their parents. When Washington is brought into the owner’s house, he spends his first days fearful because he doesn’t know what is expected of him or how to avoid punishment.But Edugyan’s characters find that escaping from slavery brings complications of a different kind. First is the fear of being re-taken. The escaped slave, Washington, and his white liberator, Titch, imaginatively escape to Virginia, a slave-owning state where they have to pretend to be master and servant to avoid bounty hunters. They find a very sketchy escape route to Canada, but Washington chooses to sail north with Titch to find Titch’s eccentric father in the Arctic. He prefers the risk of staying with his friend over the potential of an unknown freedom in Canada. Eventually he ends up in Nova Scotia, where he finds the Black community surviving in poverty almost as marginal as on the slave farm. When he is able to return to his interest in art and science, he comes to realize that Titch and his patron in science don’t really appreciate him for himself, but more as an instrument who can advance their own projects. He even comes to question his relationship to the woman he loves when she allows her father to take credit for his work. Finally, he finds, he has to go out into a stormy world entirely on his own in order to be free of the limitations of friendship and emotion. This is a difficult path, and Edugyan does not intend to say that the challenges of freedom are in any way parallel to the horrific conditions of slavery that she depicts. Only when Washington is free is he able to express himself and his own interests. But freedom does not rid the world of racism, poverty and exploitation. In fact, when the slaves are freed on the British island of Barbados, they don’t have any economic options except to continue working on the plantations in near-starvation conditions.In a kind of reversal, Edugyan shows the complications of slave ownership as well. Titch and his brother hate managing a slave plantation. They don’t seem to be brutal in themselves, but they think that brutality is the only tool they have to manage their slaves. Titch says that he would abandon the plantation, but his brother says that they have no choice because without the plantation their family would be reduced to poverty. And they are right – without fear, the slaves would revolt or simply walk away, and the family would lose its wealth and privilege. As Hegel wrote, the slaveowner becomes a slave to the institution, and without revolution neither slave nor owner can be free. It’s interesting that Washington’s interest is in the science of marine biology. The scene describing his experience with an early diving suit is amazing, especially when he has a kind of underwater dance with an octopus. The octopus is able to change colour to match its environment, but Washington has to go to extraordinary and dangerous lengths to survive in a foreign environment. It’s a memorable image, and an apt metaphor for Washington’s survival in the world. Washington has to create a new state of being, a world of creativity and freedom, but this will be a difficult and painful task.

[snash_44 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An adventure novel full of unique and complex characters whose nature is explored psychologically.

[cecilturtle · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Whereas the characters and adventures were enough to keep me interested, I felt like I'd read this story before: the great 19th century paradox of science opening the doors to humanism and specifically human rights while questoning religion, inherited constructs of colonialism and rigid structures. In this case, slavery and the status of women are highlighted as injustices and contradictions surface.I enjoyed it, but did not love it. It lacked a uniqueness that would make it stand out from other books on the same theme, and there are many. I must admit I was disappointed.

[toobusyreading · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is brutal. The atrocities of slavery are hard to read, but in line with other slavery accounts I've read. It's also hard to believe that Washington was so young, but that was a time when children, and especially slaves, had to grow up fast. What is more realistically hard to believe are all the adventures and unlikely coincidences that occurred. It stretch credulity to the breaking point. Nevertheless, this was an interesting book. In addition to being about slavery, and about some amazing adventures, there is a good deal about human nature, good and bad. It also causes the reader to question perception – how someone views himself compared to his true motives, how someone else views him. “Enjoyable” isn't really the right word to use for this book, much too much brutality and hatred, but I'm glad I read it. I just didn't buy the whole story.

[tinkerbellkk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was recommended to me as a book club selection so I likely wouldn't have picked it up otherwise. I was intrigued at the start reading about the main character's experience as a slave and then his being spared by his master's brother. He proved to be a very deep person but I felt his actual age was too young for the dialogue he was having with those around him.As the story progressed I felt it became a little far fetched about his travels and his romantic interest. It was an easy ready but maybe I needed it to be a little more realistic given the time period.

[kglattstein · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“..there are many ways on being in the world, that to privilege one rigid set of beliefs over another was to lose something. Everything is bizarre , and everything has value. Or if not value , at least merits investigation.” This is an adventure story that takes Washington Black out of a captured and torturous existences into one that leads him on a journey determined to believe there is hope for being valued. Washington's journey is a tale of fanciful travels and experiences. We learn about how he tries to make sense of the world through his own imagery and dreams. Relationships ground him, yet he is perceptive enough to know that he is not viewed as an equal so he is always striving for more knowledge and validation. Initially reminding me of Jules Verne's stories I enjoyed the telling of the story and am sure that there are themes that run through the stories of the characters that influence Wash's life (for negative and positive). Do I wish for a more conclusive storyline? Yes, but it does leave me with a deeper introspection into how Wash looked at the world around him and judged himself for it. Read this to be entertained, engaged and immersed into many different layers of introspection into human nature.

[evatkaplan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An easy & interesting read. Black slave from Barbados on a terrible plantation becomes an aid to a scientist (brother of Terrible plantation owner. They become good friends and slave is given freedom & dignity. However, is he truly free? Can a black ex-slave & a white man really be on the same par? real friends?

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like many other reviewers, I enjoyed the first three parts of this book a great deal. However, I'm not sure what to make of the final section. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say it took me a while to fully appreciate what happened to Titch....and I'm still not sure the rationale holds together given earlier events and actions of the characters.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The story of George Washington Black is one of the odyssey of a young boy through his growth to manhood. In this case the young boy is a slave on a plantation in Barbados. Born on that plantation and raised by his mother Big Kitt, young Wash, as he is called, is presented with a unique opportunity when Christopher Wilde, the brother of the Master of the Plantation, chooses Wash to be his assistant in his ventures exploring the natural world. Soon Wash enters into a world where the possibility of his escape from a life in chains changes from fantasy into reality. The reality he experiences includes many adventures that seem to be closer to the realm of the fantastic than that of the everyday.The novel opens in 1830 where the English family named Wilde owns Faith plantation in Barbados. Wash is the narrator and is a slave who was born on the plantation in the year 1818. The master of the plantation is Erasmus Wilde, who is cruel and sadistic towards the slaves. Kit, Big Kit to Wash, is a female slave who takes care of Wash—says that she and Wash will be reincarnated in Africa after they die. One day, Erasmus’ younger brother, Christopher “Titch” Wilde—arrives on the island. He is a scientist and inventor, and he hopes to test his new hot air balloon design on a nearby mountain. Titch is an abolitionist and finds the methods of his cruel brother abhorrent. Titch enlists Wash as an assistant, and he teaches Wash to read, write, and draw. Wash is fascinated by drawing finds he has a special ability to sketch images of the natural world. Titch continues working on his hot air balloon, but, due to an accidental gas explosion from the balloon, Wash suffers burns on much of his face and body that will stay with him for life. Titch and Erasmus’ cousin Philip comes to visit, unfortunately Philip suffers from depression and soon kills himself. Titch believes that Erasmus will likely accuse Wash of killing Philip and will kill Wash as a means of spiting Titch. So Titch and Wash escape using the hot air balloon and then gain passage by boat to Norfolk, Virginia. There, a kind sexton named Edgar Farrow gives them temporary shelter. In the meantime Erasmus hires a bounty hunter to retrieve Wash. Titch takes Wash with him north to Canada, where they meet with James Wilde, Titch’s father, who is on a scientific expedition. After James refuses to help secure Wash’s safety from Erasmus, Titch devolves into a frenzy of despair and wanders off into the wilderness.WIth Titch gone, Wash travels to Nova Scotia to hopefully live and work in peace. He is about 16 years old by that time. The British Empire abolishes slavery, but he still witnesses and experiences instances of racial tension and persecution. Wash befriends a young woman named Tanna Goff, who is from England. Her father is the renowned marine zoologist Geoffrey Goff, who is in Canada collecting specimens for an exhibition in London. Goff hires Wash as an assistant and illustrator, allowing Wash to further develop his talents. The bounty hunter catches up with Wash. However he escapes only after learning that Titch is alive and in England. A romance begins to develop between Tanna and Wash. Wash conceives of having an exhibition of live sea creatures in London. Wash and the Goffs return to London to execute this plan.In the concluding section of the novel we find Wash with the Goffs in London. However Wash still desires to try to find Titch. His further adventures take him to Amsterdam and Morocco as the novel ends. I found the novel endlessly fascinating with both the story of Wash's growth into a successful young man and Titch's search for meaning in his life compelling narratives. The plot at times bordered on the fantastic, but the strength of the characters overcame any weakness in the story-line. This novel from the pen Esi Edugyan is worthy of consideration by all who enjoy historical adventures.

[beanbrarian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful, readable story with an admirable mix of adventure and characterization. While the modern sensibility of the author is obvious, it's never overbearing or needlessly overt. Black is a fascinating, complex individual whose life on the boundaries of enslavement and freedom, capitalism and the old ways, science and superstition is a vehicle for a picaresque narrative the crosses the Atlantic and runs north-south.

[thedivineoomba · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a book that manages to hit the sweet spot of excellent writing, great characters, but doesn't pull punches on the experiences of being a black man in a world that where being black makes you subhuman. Washington Black is the main character, but, the supporting characters, from Titch, to Tanna, are all fully written, even with a few sentences of back story.There are elements of the fantastic in this book, the cloud cutter, or keeping an octopus alive for a trip across the sea, but this only adds to the story. As for the setting Esi Edugyan captures the setting, from the cold north to the very hot islands. The author has a way with words that are easy to understand, but is full of depth.My only problem is the ending - I felt it ended oddly, and a bit too short, but that's okay. The journey of Washington Black well makes up for it.

[hccpsk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan is hard to pin down and describe. It’s a slave narrative, an adventure novel, a bildungsroman...but not...so approach with an open mind. Washington Black requires a suspension of belief as Edugyan spins a bold and sometimes incredible tale that begins on a Barbados sugar plantation in the 1800s. George Washington Black is a young orphan living through the terrors of slavery when he is taken under the wing of the owner’s brother, Christopher “Titch” Wilde, and removed from the suffering of the field. Titch is a naturalist, scientist, and abolitionist who helps Wash escape from the plantation and strange adventures ensue. Edugyan writes elegantly yet honestly and the story flows easily from one exploit to the next making for a pretty quick read that I would recommend to readers of historical fiction that aren’t afraid of a little quirkiness.

[librorumamans · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Washington Black is a novel of awakening: first of an uncomprehending and unlettered child through his adolescence to the threshold of his adulthood as an accomplished artist and scientist; and beyond him it is the awakening of an agricultural society based on forced labour to a freer one emerging into the industrial and scientific eras.Wash begins in 1830 enslaved on a sugar plantation in Barbados in an elemental world of earth, air, fire, and water. Trapped in this captivity there is no hope and no future except death. Indeed, Wash narrowly escapes death from each of these elements. These are the adventures that make up the narrative thread of the book.In the improbabilities of these adventures, Edugyan builds the literary atmosphere of the period, of Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters and Dickens, even perhaps of Baron Munschausen. Once we are established there, she shows us how, through careful mentoring, Wash discovers in himself a genius for draughtsmanship and eventually art as well as a talent for scientific investigation, principally marine biology. These are the very years Darwin spent aboard The Beagle and Wash's travels and researches echo Darwin's. Not only does Wash contribute to the science underlying the Darwinian revolution, he is also the indispensable assistant to early attempts at air travel and undersea exploration. He invents the aquarium, historically credited to Philip Henry Gosse. All this is the process of Wash's tireless and determined claiming of his freedom -- physical, legal, and intellectual. He encapsulates the growth of the age.But it is Gosse whom history credits with the aquarium, not Washington Black. This, I think, is Edugyan's chief point. The sugar, tobacco, and cotton fortunes were generated by the uncredited labour of Africans. Those fortunes funded the discoveries of the nineteenth century. Africans also contributed more directly, as Wash does, to those discoveries, but who were they? Shouldn't we know about them? If Wash's story threading through the developments of the nineteenth century is the weft of this novel, then this central question is its warp.Eudgyan's confident creation of a fabric comprising so many strands is impressive, and to do so by weaving language of such vibrancy and suppleness is a triumph.

[kakadoo202 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Some parts interesting. Some parts too detailed while others are just shallow.

[mcelhra · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

George Washington Black, or Wash for short, is an eleven year old slave in Barbados. His master is an unbelievably cruel man. His master’s brother, Titch, convinces his master to let him borrow Wash to be his assistant of sorts. He’s an explorer and inventor. Luckily for Wash, he’s also a nice person who treats him like a human being, not property. For the most part anyway.Wash witnesses a white man’s death, leading people to assume he was at fault. A reward is offered for his capture – dead or alive. Wash and Titch flee the plantation and go on many adventures around the world.Washington Black explores what freedom is. It requires some suspension of disbelief. For instance, Wash and Titch go to Antarctica at one point. The chances that the two of them could survive there for weeks back in the 1800s is doubtful. However, the fantastical elements are necessary to move the plot along and I wasn’t bothered by them.This book was my book club’s October selection. There was a wide range of opinions. Some of us loved it, some thought it was meh and some did not care for it. I read a couple reviews of it that said it was one of the best books of 2018 so my expectations were pretty high going in and I was disappointed in that regard. However, I did like it – I just didn’t love it. If you’ve read it, let me know what you thought.

[froxgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an adventurous novel of great heart and insight, much in the vein of Octavian Nothing, His Dark Materials, and The Good Lord Bird. George Washington Black, called Wash, born enslaved in Barbados on Faith Plantation, is taken up as an eight year old by Titch, the scientist brother of the cruel owner. Wash, a talented artist, becomes Titch's assistant and travels with him, due to accidents and happenstance, to Virginia, the Arctic, Nova Scotia, England, and Morocco, all while being pursued by an agent of the vengeful slaveholder, with a thousand dollar bounty on his head. Wash's journey and his inability to escape the misery of his youth allow for very few glimpses of joy, and the ending is ambiguous rather than happy, but it's an absorbing, well-written, imaginative tale.Quote: "That was how it began, me and Big Kit, watching the dead go free."

[hemlokgang · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Quite a powerful novel. I listened to the audiobook, and the reader had a lovely voice. Starting on a plantation in Barbados, a young male slave is handed off, as a favor, to the master's brother to assist in scientific experiments with a hot air balloon. Dreams in the sky & reality on the ground become the themes of this tale. A journey across continents & a journey in life combine to make a story of race, of brotherly love, loyalty, and disillusion. It is a coming of age tale, told in a beautiful saga. Above all, in my opinion, it is a lovely story about the eternal search for love and meaning.

[emanate28 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I didn't 'get' this book. Each scene/setting is powerful and disturbing and bizarre (the whole premise of the book is bizarre...!), but in the end, each character is like a shadow to me. Perhaps the whole point is to show that we can't ever understand anyone else, but it leaves me unsettled and unsatisfied. Certainly an unusual book!