Journey's End

Bondage and buoyancy in Esi Edugyan’s “Washington Black.”

- Laura Miller

“Tell me, child, have you ever witnessed a harvest moon through a reflector scope?” These are among the first words addressed to George Washington (Wash) Black, an unlettered, twelve-year-old slave on a brutal Barbados sugar plantation, by Christopher (Titch) Wilde, gentleman scientist and the brother of Wash’s sadistic British master. In Esi Edugyan’s third novel, “Washington Black” (Knopf ), Titch’s inquiry marks the beginning of a friendship both beautiful and tormenting, liberating and circumscribed. Titch is the first white man to treat Wash decently. It is such an alien experience that, when the young slave is directed to sit at the same table with the stranger, and perches on an upholstered chair, it seems so soft that it’s “monstrous.”