The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Read

Book Review by Stephanie Lamp

Annette Gordon-Reed has been a professor at New York law school since 1992. She won a Pulitzer Prize in history for her book the Hemingses of Monticello. She is also recognized as one of the most distinguished presidential scholars. She has written many different books about Jefferson, because of her fascination with him in general.
For many years the life and history of Thomas Jefferson has not been completely told. There has always been rumor, suspicion, and gossip concerning his “moral life”. Gordon-Reed has achieved the most complete record of this unique family by combining approximately three hundred and fifty sources with all the joy, sadness, and horror this brings. The main theme Gordon-Reed appears to always return to is accurate detail no matter how small.
In gathering her resources she never limits herself to records that are specifically from Jefferson’s life. If she finds material with a date, and it is proven that Jefferson was present, she will often combine this information with many other details that seemingly have nothing to do with the immediate story. This technique gives her a fuller story then any of its individual parts. This book does not flow like a typical story, in my mind it seems more like a scholarly thesis. Structurally she is correct, but the story definitely does not always flow.
I did not choose to review this book. Looking back I am glad that I got the opportunity to read this amazing story of a past president’s personal life. Honestly I do not think I would have chosen this particular book. Not because of its content but because of the form it was written in.
Now that the material in this book is in my head I believe Gordon-Reed did complete what she set out to do in telling this controversial story. I want to qualify this statement by saying that she was often repetitious. Hundreds of pages could go by and suddenly we are being told something we covered long ago in previous chapters. I found myself doubting my own memory, looking back to see if I had in fact read this. Surprisingly, I had. Gordon-Reed’s material was sound, but her talent in combing thousands of facts is often lacking. She is talented in digging up facts, but does not create a story that flows. To give you an example; just when we think were through with the seventeen nineties and are currently in the eighteen twenties, suddenly were back in the previous century. Another example is the topic of Jefferson’s migraines. I can’t stress strongly enough how many times throughout this book she finds a new reason to bring up Jefferson’s already established migraines. It almost seems as if she was just trying to complete a specific high word count. Another serious distraction is her continual unnecessary use of “thousand dollar” words, simplicity could have added sufficiently to her subject.
Gordon-Reed’s strength lies in her detailed development of individual characters. It must be said, it’s impossible to finish this book without truly feeling intimate knowledge of Jefferson himself, Sally, their children together, or even his white children from Martha. Interestingly more detail is found concerning Sally’s brothers James and Robert than about Sally herself. Gordon-Reed surmises, this could be largely because there are no existing letters, diaries, or journals to or from Sally herself. We know Jefferson was amazingly private. His inclination to destroy all communication with his wife Martha leads us to understand why nothing exists in written form from Sally. His fear was always that his personal words would fall into the wrong hands, and be used against him.
The author should be given credit not only for her character development but also for her detailed portrayal of daily life in this early American time period. Truly this is an amazing historical investigation. The words that come to my mind are compelling and yet disturbing. Throughout the whole book no matter what details were looking into the most overriding fact seems to be class, race and the differences that could never be breached, not even by love.