Eleven-year-old George Washington Blackor Washa field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is initially terrified when he is chosen as the manservant of his masters brother. To his surprise, however, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning, and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human.

But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Washs head, they must abandon everything and flee together. Over the course of their travels, what brings Wash and Christopher together will tear them apart, propelling Wash ever farther across the globe in search of his true self. Spanning the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, London to Morocco,Washington Blackis a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, and of a world destroyed and made whole again.