The Hemingses of Monticello

Author: Annette Gordon-Reed
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: W. W. & Company, Inc., 2009
Pages: 800
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: The Hemingses of Monticello is Annette Gordon-Reed's "riveting history" of the Hemings family, whose story comes to life in this researched and moving work. Gordon-Reed unearths startling new information about the Hemingses, Jefferson, and his white family. Although the book presents a detailed portrait of Sarah Hemings, who bore seven children by Jefferson over the course of their thirty-eight-year liaison, The Hemingses of Monticello tells more than the story of her life with Jefferson and their children. The Hemingses as a whole take their rightful place in the narrative of the family's extraordinary engagement with one of history's most important figures.

Review: I happened across this book while browsing the audio book section of the library. I put it back initially because it's 31.5 hours long and 25 disks, but the title stayed with me and eventually my curiosity got the better of me. 

The Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings liaison has intrigued me since I first learned of it in high school or college, and this book appeared to have all the juicy details and more. I'm always up for a well-written family saga. I checked it out from the library and couldn't wait to get started.

Some non-fiction reads like fiction, but that is not the case in The Hemingses of Monticello. This audio-book is like sitting in a history lecture class, and I loved it for that. By the same token, I wouldn't even want to try to read the paperback or electronic version. Too long, too cumberson, and just too darn heavy, in the case of a hardback book.

For all of Gordon-Reed's research and information brought forth in The Hemingses of Monticello, she cannot say conclusively what the nature of Jeffferson's and Hemings' relationship was exactly. Was she merely a concubine or paramour, or did they have something more than that. Neither ever said, and historians will forever have this subject to debate.

Gordon-Reed views Jefferson in a critical light, but my own opinion is that Jefferson lived in another time and place. His cheerleaders have him on a pedestal and dissenters have run his name through the mud. Jefferson was a man, flawed as we all are. The truth lies in the middle of what those who love him feel, and what those that hate him feel.

I gave this a "Do Not Recommend. If Gordon-Reed's primary objective was to discuss the Hemingses of Monticello, as the title suggests, in some way she failed the reader. She goes far beyond this scope to discuss the geneology of other families in the area at that time, generalizations about human nature, facts that anyone alive today already understands about the institution of slavery. The material should have been trimmed so as to align more closely with the title, or the book be given a more general title so as not to mislead readers. Ultimately, The Hemingses of Monticello will appeal to a small percentage of readers.