Meet Stanley Williams: Single, in his thirties, grieving the death of his Jamaican father and wondering if there is more to life than his nine-to-five banking job in a sky-high glass menagerie.Enter Jessie O'Donnell: barmaid, former singer- -comedienne, and desperate to get into her rusty old Lady Niva and hit the freeway across Europe.The unlikely pair begin an electrifying odyssey that weaves in and out of history, colliding with the forgotten heroes of Europe's past. Barrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he's lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character with a dapper taste in retro suits and a fondness for quoting Shakespeare, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather - but he is also secretly , lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris. In this fantastically imaginative inversion of the transatlantic trade - in which 'whytes' are enslaved by black people - Bernardine Evaristo has created a thought-provoking satire that is as accessible and readable as it is intelligent and insightful. Blonde Roots brings the shackles and cries of long-ago barbarity uncomfortably close and raises timely questions about the society of today.