The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

by Annette Gordon-Reed

This epic work—named a best book of the year by the Washington Post, Time, the Los Angeles Times, Amazon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and a notable book by the New York Times—tells the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president had been systematically expunged from American history until very recently. Now, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family’s dispersal after Jefferson’s death in 1826.

• ISBN10: 0393337766
• ISBN13: 9780393337761
• Publish Date: 2 October 2009 (first published 21 October 2008)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: WW Norton & Co
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 816
• Language: English

Reviews

[inlibrisveritas]

Finally finished! It took long enough. Despite my slow going with this book it was fairly good and really interesting.

I personally adore Thomas Jefferson, if you couldn't tell, and after a trip to Montecello and Poplar Forest I started this book. It's a pretty in depth look on both Jefferson's life as well as the close slave families, though as the titles suggests it does focus on the Hemings family more so then the others. There was a lot interesting facts, stories, letters and even some pictures included that sheds some light on their public and private lives. I enjoyed learning more about Sally Hemings' family as well as her personal situation within the soical web of Jefferson's life. There was so much that I didn't know about her or her family that some of it was entirely new to me. This was also one of those books where every time I learned something remotely interesting that I didn't know I simply had to tell someone, I found a lot of it fascinating.

My only real complaint about this book is that the author tends to sound...bitter almost. It proved distracting at times and was one of the main reasons I kept putting the book down. As non-fiction I don't expect a lot of free-thought to be included unless it's in a separate section, and while she does do that she also includes speculation that comes off as bias during the informative parts as well. It happened enough that I would get irritated and simply stop reading for days. I found it a tad unprofessional on the author's part to put forth an opinion so rigidly that it overshadows some of the information. Overall it's a really good book and it's worth reading if you have an interest in Thomas Jefferson or Sally Hemings but be aware that the author's personal voice does tend to come through at times.