Synopses & Reviews
Bringing to life one of the greatest and most controversial love stories, this fictional account reveals the beautiful and elusive Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson’s mistress for 38 years whom he loved and lived with until he died. Adding to the scandal, she was a quadroon slave and Jefferson fathered a slave family whose descendants are alive today. In this novel, Jefferson and his mistress are fully realized, as are many of the other personages of the early Republic—Aaron Burr, Dolly and James Madison, John and Abigail Adams, and Sally’s mother Elizabeth, who was Jefferson’s father-in-law’s mistress. This brilliant and highly acclaimed novel is a contemporary masterpiece—a poignant, tragic, and unforgettable meditation on the history of race and sex in America.
Review
"The relationship must have been much as the author depicts it in this fine first novel: a mixture of love and hate, of tenderness and cruelty and of freedom and bondage. The book is well researched, well written, insightful, and entertaining. Highly recommended.” Library Journal
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[An] extremely affecting and poetic first novel. Even if historical fact and careful supposition were not the storys basis, the Jefferson-Hemings relationship the novelist has imagined would be unforgettable.” The New Republic
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A bold undertaking. The portrait of Jefferson is brilliantly imagined.” Larry McMurtry, New York Magazine
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Chase-Riboud, an unusually gifted writer, has taken a stunning historical idea and made it sing with life. The characters and settingsthe Hemings family and the Jefferson of Paris and Monticelloare vivid. Sally Hemings is a beautiful novel: the writing is eloquent, the story haunting.” Grand Rapids Press
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Haunting . . . powerful and touching.” The Denver Post
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Her novelistic abilities are impressive: she writes with grace and force, has an eye for detail and an ear for dialogue, a sense of scene and a capacity to create believable and interesting characters . . . Intelligently, even brilliantly imagined.” - The New Yorker
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Exquisitely crafted . . . a sensitive life study of a truly exceptional woman: complex, courageous, irresistibly attractive.” Cosmopolitan
Review
The Thomas JeffersonSally Hemings legend is as deeply embedded in American mythology as John Henry. Barbara Chase-Riboud has captured all of the power, pain and ironic beauty which make the legend persist. It is a very moving and human novel.” Nathan Huggins, author of Black Odyssey
Synopsis
Sally Hemings is a novel, but its basis is in fact-as proven by DNA tests on the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and the mysterious woman who bore him seven children.
Barbara Chase-Riboud's moving and controversial novel recreates the love story of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence, and his beautiful quadroon slave, Sally Hemings. Spanning two continents, sixty years, and seven presidencies, Sally Hemings explores the complex blend of love and hate, tenderness and cruelty, freedom and bondage, that made their lifelong liaison one of the most poignant and unforgettable chapters in American history.
Synopsis
Using documents and historical evidence, this novel explores the complexities of a 38-year affair between President Thomas Jefferson and his beautiful slave--a connection that has recently been confirmed by DNA evidence.
Synopsis
One of the greatest love stories in American history is also one of the most controversial. Thomas Jefferson had a mistress for 38 years whom he loved and lived with until he diedthe beautiful and elusive Sally Hemings. But it was not simply that Jefferson had a mistress that provoked such a scandal in both his time and ours. It was that Sally Hemings was a quadroon slave and that Jefferson fathered a slave family whose descendants are alive today. In this moving novel, originally published in 1979 and having sold over two million copies worldwide, Barbara Chase-Riboud re-creates one of Americas most powerful love stories, based on the documents and evidence of the day, and gives us a poignant, tragic, and unforgettable meditation on the history of race and sex in America.
About the Author
Barbara Chase-Riboud is an acclaimed African-American novelist, poet, and sculptor. Her bestselling historical novels include Echo of Lions, Hottentot Venus, The Presidents Daughter, and Valide.