Washington Black - Esi Edugyan

I'm just going to say it now. This is the best book I will read in 2019. The moment I woke up after reading all night, I sent a note to my mom and sister - "Just finished this last night. It's exquisite."

Exquisite. I'm not sure I can think of a better word than that to describe Esi Edugyan's Washington Black. First, the writing is exquisite. This is about as tight as a novel can be written but still say so much. Words aren't wasted. Ordinary words line up in a sentence and become transformative. Here's some examples:

"You were children," his father said. "You knew nothing of beauty."
"Children know everything about beauty," Titch countered softly. "It is adults who have forgotten."

"In any case, it was then I recognized that my own values - the tenets I hold dear as an Englishman - they are not the only, nor the best, values in existence. I understood there were many ways of being in the world, that to privilege one rigid set of beliefs over another was to lose something." 

Goff gave a flustered grunt, shoving some boiled potatoes into his mouth, but I could see he was interested. "Such a thing is not possible." 
I peered quietly at him. "Nothing is possible, sir, until it is made so."

Point number two: The nuance is exquisite. These characters, they're complex without being unnecessarily so. There are strong positions on slavery and race, but it's not surface stuff. There is so much nuance - so much examination of the subtle violence of slavery and racism that accompany the obvious violence. 

Point number three: The timelessness of the story is exquisite. Yes, clearly this novel is set in the 1830s. It boldly displays that at the start of each section. And yet. And yet. I would sometimes completely forget that this was happening in a setting close on 200 years ago. All of a sudden a carriage would make its way through a city and I would be shocked to remember that this was all happening a long time ago. This shouldn't be possible when one of the characters is a former slave, and slavery is still a very much real part of the plot, but it just somehow was. George Washington Black, "Wash", was timeless in his character. Somehow. And that is just a very real mark of the artistry put in by Edugyan. 

So I could say many things about the plot. How 11 year old Wash is selected by Christopher Wilde to become his assistant while he toils around his brother's plantation. How Christopher, "Titch", is repulsed but also complacent in his brother's mistreatment of slaves on the land. How the brutality of slavery seeps into every page of the first part of the novel and beyond. How Wash has an opportunity to escape that life without truly understanding what this meant to be forever one part out and one part in. How a daring escape led to a discovery of what it fully means to be your own person. 

But this is really not a novel that can be described but has to be experienced. Because my heart still feels full of it and that's a rare gift.

5/5 Stars.