Washington Black

When a book is on pretty much every list for one of the best of the year, you should probably read it. Sometimes you'll be disappointed (The Vegetarian, anyone? UGH). But, sometimes you can instantly see why the world raved about such a book.

Washington Black was one of those books. I read about it on a ton of lists, recalling the best reads of 2018. The writing alone makes it worthy. But, as good as that writing was and as much as I found myself interested, I would have liked for the story to move along a little more quickly. That would have taken it from 3 stars to 4 for me in the all-important "random book rankings on Good Reads" scale.

Washington Black is our narrator - full name: George Washington Black. He's given that name by the master who owns him on a sugar plantation in Barbados. We meet "Wash" as they call him in the opening pages and he tells us then that he is a free man. Then, he goes back to his earliest memories on that plantation and foreshadows the route to freedom that is to come.

We learn of the violence through Wash's eyes. How he came to lean on an older slave named Big Kit and how he's invited into the master's house for a meeting that changes his life. We follow Wash to freedom, to America, to the Arctic and beyond - and, we realize that while he's technically free, he can never escape the men and the memories that haunted his life as a slave.

The story is compelling. The characters are sometimes larger than life. But, it's the beauty of Edugyan's writing that makes this book a worthwhile read. Again, there were times the story slowed and a lesser author would have lost me. But, she manages to create enough inertia that you have to simply follow Wash's story to see where it goes.