Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
Washington Black, an eleven year-old boy, starts his life enslaved on a plantation in Barbados in the 1830's and has never known anything but cruelty and sorrow. The plantation he has grown up on is now in the possession of two brothers, one so cruel that people would rather die than be mistreated by him (the Master, Erasmus), and one with his head in the clouds and his mind on inventions (Christopher, or "Titch"). Wash gets "picked" by the inventor to assist on a new project and thus begins his new life. From a horrific death that drives Wash and Titch to flee the plantation, their journey leads them to an America still enslaved and to the wilds of the North. Eventually, they are separated and Wash must strike out on his own and find his way through the "freedom" of Eastern Canada and, eventually, the opportunities of Great Britain.
This book is the single greatest Adventure story I've ever read. Esi Edugyan is a genius and her nature of story-telling is phenomenal. This story is reminiscent of an Epic journey. There is so much excitement throughout and you can never guess what can happen next. Right up until the end I could not tear my eyes from the page. The entire story is told through the eyes of Washington Black, beginning from when he was eleven years old and the new masters took over the plantation where he was enslaved all the way up to and including his early adulthood. Written from a Black perspective, the reality of discrimination even in Free areas of the world was heartbreaking and enraging.
The foreshadowing in this book kept me on my toes! If you've read any of my reviews before, you'll know I'm a sucker for some good foreshadowing. For instance, in Part One of the novel, Wash goes on about how his master treats him kindly but there's always an underlying sentence with each "act of kindness" that reminds you that this isn't a "friendly" relationship. No matter how nice this man is, he still owns Wash. He can destroy Wash with one word and this knowledge always keeps Wash from fully trusting him. This book does not allow you to forget the precarious knives edge life lead by an enslaved person. One wrong word or even look and you could be done for. I really enjoyed that it kept that reality aspect, you weren't lulled into a false sense of security. Washington Black didn't immediately love and cherish his master just because he was kind, he was always aware of the fact that this man had the power to free him, but used him instead to better his own ambitions instead.
There were a lot of parts of this book that emphasized the reality of a master/slave relationship. In lots of books written by white people, the kind white man who opposes slavery is this amazing hero and he whisks away the young Black boy to a free country where it's all sunshine and rainbows..... Except that's not how it really went. Canada, for example, has always been portrayed as the most amazing haven for people escaping enslavement because of the Underground Railroad. I remember reading Underground to Canada in elementary school and it ended with everything being happy and safe in Canada with the entire community respecting Black people and helping them get a start in their new life.... completely ignoring the fact that discrimination and racism still ran rampant even without slavery existing in the country at that point in time. This book totally dispelled that false point of view. Even though Wash lived a short while in a free country, he had little to no rights and could barely make a living because of the colour of his skin. This book also avoided the "white hero" narrative. Titch may have been the reason Wash got off that plantation. But he owned Wash and he used Wash to his own ends. Everything Wash accomplished in life, he did with his own talent and skill, not because he was bolstered up by the kindly white slaver. The realism made this fictional book come alive and brought a tiny bit of perspective into how difficult life would have been for a man newly freed from slavery in a world still riddled with hate.
This book was enrapturing from start to end. We witnessed the horrors of plantation life for this eleven-year-old boy, we were with him through the terrifying landscape of the far North, we experienced hate and wonder in Nova Scotia with him as a young adult starting his career, we journeyed with him to new opportunities in London and we said goodbye to him in a sandy Moroccan village. I recommend this book strongly to everyone. It's life-changing. I want to read it again and again and again. Five stars for sure! (I'd give it 6 if I could!)
~Taylor-Paige