Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

by Stephen O'Connor

“Dazzling. . . The most revolutionary reimagining of Jefferson’s life ever.” –Ron Charles, Washington PostWinner of the Crook’s Corner Book PrizeLonglisted for the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel PrizeA debut novel about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, in whose story the conflict between the American ideal of equality and the realities of slavery and racism played out in the most tragic of terms.  Novels such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved, The Known World by Edward P. Jones, James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird and Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks are a part of a long tradition of American fiction that plumbs the moral and human costs of history in ways that nonfiction simply can't. Now Stephen O’Connor joins this company with a profoundly original exploration of the many ways that the institution of slavery warped the human soul, as seen through the story of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. O’Connor’s protagonists are rendered via scrupulously researched scenes of their lives in Paris and at Monticello that alternate with a harrowing memoir written by Hemings after Jefferson’s death, as well as with dreamlike sequences in which Jefferson watches a movie about his life, Hemings fabricates an "invention" that becomes the whole world, and they run into each other "after an unimaginable length of time" on the New York City subway. O'Connor is unsparing in his rendition of the hypocrisy of the Founding Father and slaveholder who wrote "all men are created equal,” while enabling Hemings to tell her story in a way history has not allowed her to. His important and beautifully written novel is a deep moral reckoning, a story about the search for justice, freedom and an ideal world—and about the survival of hope even in the midst of catastrophe.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Historical, Presidents, Magical Realism, Audiobook

393 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 5, 2016

About the author

STEPHEN OCONNOR is the author of two collections of short fiction, Rescue and Here Comes Another Lesson, and of two works of nonfiction, Will My Name Be Shouted Out?, a memoir, and Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed, narrative history.

His fiction and poetry have appeared in The New Yorker, Conjunctions, TriQuarterly, Threepenny Review, Poetry Magazine, The Missouri Review, The Quarterly, Partisan Review, The Massachusetts Review, Fiction International, and many other places. His essays and journalism have been published in The New York Times, DoubleTake, The Nation, Agni, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The New Labor Forum, and elsewhere.

He is a recipient of the Cornell Woolrich Fellowship in Creative Writing from Columbia University; the Visiting Fellowship for Historical Research by Artists and Writers from the American Antiquarian Society; and the DeWitt Wallace/Readers Digest Fellowship from the MacDowell Colony. He lives in New York City and teaches fiction and nonfiction writing in the MFA programs of Columbia and Sarah Lawrence.

For additional information, please visit:www.stephenoconnor.net
"

Reviews

[Amanda Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

If ever a book needed a half star, this is it. I would have given it 3.5. The book is fascinating in its way, and the subject matter is so intriguing that it is impossible not to be drawn in. On the other hand, it is just weird. Yes, I know that is a stylistic choice. I don't mind the dream sequences and I'm not so old-fashioned that I can't take a little post-modernism thrown in. But some of the fragments really take away from the flow of the story. Perhaps that is the intent, but if so that style is not for me.

Taken on its own, the representation of Jefferson's and Hemings's relationship is quite good. I'm glad I read it. If you are interested, don't be put off by the size of the book. It looks huge, but some of the pages have a single sentence. I read it in only a few days.

[Animekrazed · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is literally slavery with rape at the for front. I don't care if the writing made you cry. The guy owned her and everyone wants to say it was consensual? This is why rape victims suffer today. This is why you have ignorant people walking around today saying slavery never hapend. Dufuq?

[Ron Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

And now comes the most revolutionary reimagining of Jefferson’s life ever: a colossal postmodern novel that’s often baffling, possibly offensive and frequently bizarre. In fact, its prognosis for popular success is so bleak that it’s something of a miracle it made it into print. But what a dazzling experience this book is for the intrepid reader. “Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings” is no mere retelling of the scandal at Monticello or Hemings’s secret life or Jefferson’s service in Paris and Washington — although it certainly throws all that into its furnace. Stephen O’Connor, who teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, has engineered a Rube Goldberg machine of literary gadgets that shouldn’t work at all but somehow works wonders.

Through one strain of the novel runs the story of Jefferson’s life, from his lonely childhood to his famous death, told with the close, psychologically astute detail of an omniscient, third-person narrator. We see the dark introverted thinker, thoroughly conscious. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

[Mrs. Danvers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outlandish and audacious. Filled with morally complex people and with strange dreams and scenes that are wildly imaginative. Thomas Jefferson is an ape in a zoo. Thomas Jefferson is watching a movie with James and Dolley Madison. Thomas Jefferson is riding a subway. Sally Hemings tells her own story here as well and it is heartbreaking. This just scratches the surface. It's almost unbelievable that this wild ride works at all but it does, and it does so marvelously and peculiarly and addictively.

[Lucy Blue · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this meticulously researched and exquisitely deconstructed narrative, novelist and historian Stephen O'Connor views the life and work of the great American architect of personal liberty through the prism of his relationship with Sally Hemings, a woman he considered his rightful possession. This paradox strikes at the heart of our national identity, and while he doesn't make it make sense, O'Connor does manage to define it in a way that seems plausible, empathetic, and almost but not quite complete.
The author fractures his story into a spectrum of different tales intertwined. A third person limited telling of the facts as we know them from the point of view of an intelligently-imagined Jefferson and a first person confession of identity and shame from Hemings are familiar devices of historical fiction done well. But what about the Jefferson who's sitting in a contemporary movie theater with Dolly and James Madison, being driven mad by a lushly romantic biopic of his life and love for Sally? Or the Jefferson-like prisoner being tortured by a furious black female guard? Or the New York Jefferson on the subway pining for the Sally who's ignoring him across the way? Or, strangest of all, the nameless narrator exploring a weird hellscape that seems to be the inside of a colossal Jefferson--the haunted house of the great man's reputation? He finds another Jefferson and another Hemings here, two survivors of some unnamed apocalypse, clinging and traveling together.
I love this stuff--my favorite work in grad school was on the fractured narratives of writers like A.S. Byatt and Thomas Pynchon, and I'd rank this novel with the best of that style. It gets at a truth of Jefferson and, less successfully, of Hemings that no straightforward telling could.
But is it enough? As a work of literary art, I found this book really satisfying. As a story about people, not so much. O'Connor doesn't solve the puzzle of Jefferson; that he can't is kind of the point. But he does a great job of finding all the pieces.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a bizarre but engaging novel. O'Connor takes a large helping of well-research historical fiction and seasons it with various postmodern interludes -- a prisoner (presumably Jefferson) being harassed by his guard, various people wandering around inside Jefferson's body, Jefferson seeing Sally Hemings on the subway in modern New York. To be honest, I didn't quite know what to make of those sections, but they did serve the purpose of giving the author another angle from which to consider his theme.

Obviously I throw the term "thought-provoking" around way too much, because it feels inadequate here. But this was one of the most thought-provoking novels I've ever read. It makes you think about race in America, both the history and the continuing issues. It makes you think about Thomas Jefferson and recognizing that while he was a great man, he was still just a man and had his flaws. Also, the writing is beautiful, and I marked many passages to come back to later.

For such a weighty tome, both in length and content, I simply flew through the pages. It's one of those books that you can just disappear into, and when I finished the last page I didn't want to pick up another book. I could see rereading this in a few years and enjoying it anew. And I will say no more, because I think this is the kind of book you just have to experience for yourself - someone else's review won't be any use.

I'm surprised that this is a debut novel. I'd be curious to read some of O'Connor's poetry and short stories.

(At first I gave this 3 stars because the non-historical parts are just a bit weird for my taste, but I decided to bump it up because it was such a compelling read that stayed with me!)

The fine print: received ARC from Edelweiss.

[Sydney Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing book. Historical writings blended with historical fiction blended with fantastical urban dreaming, this book presents the contradiction of Jefferson, as well as the facts around question of his 37 year relationship with Sally Hemings. Raises more questions than it answers, which it the way I like it. Very lyrical, too, which is always a bonus.

[Gayla Bassham · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a big, shapeless, unwieldy mess.

I think there's something admirable in the attempt to write it, and I think O'Connor has worked hard at getting into Thomas Jefferson's and Sally Hemings's heads, as well as into the eighteenth-century zeitgeist, in an attempt to understand how they understood their -- I don't even know what to call it, since "relationship" seems laughably inadequate to describe whatever this was.

I do think it's fair to O'Connor to point out that he is very clear that at the beginning, when Sally Hemings was 14 and Thomas Jefferson 44, Hemings was raped by Jefferson. The Sally Hemings in this book, at least (we really know nothing about the interior life of the real Hemings) actively did not want to have sex with Jefferson and resisted to the point of foolhardiness, given her situation. (And even if that were the case, there would have been no way for a teenaged Hemings to meaningfully consent to sex with her middle-aged master.) O'Connor suggests that Hemings's feelings for Jefferson changed over the course of three decades into something approaching love, although love of a complicated and ambivalent nature.

Is that impossible? I don't think so; people are weird and Stockholm Syndrome is a thing and it's true that Jefferson offered Hemings some valuable currency in that she lived a better, easier life than his other slaves and he agreed to free her children. Could that feel like love to her? It might -- I don't think it's impossible -- but I didn't find the soft-focus scenes of romance in a fanciful hidden-away lodge to be remotely plausible. (The scene in which she insists on calling him "My Tom" -- my eyes practically rolled out of my head.) The main problem with this book -- other than repeated attempts at postmodern nonsense, which added nothing in my opinion -- is that I never for one moment forgot that I was reading a white guy's interpretation of what Sally Hemings felt about Thomas Jefferson. Maybe that's not fair, and O'Connor is unquestionably a well-intentioned white guy, but still -- that's a problem in the writing, because he never made me believe in the Sally Hemings he was trying to conjure.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel is a baffling, pretentious misfire. O'Connor adopts a bizarre pointillist approach to depicting Thomas Jefferson's affair with slave Sally Hemings, with bite-sized chapters in a variety of clashing styles. Some chapters are straight narrative sketching key moments in its protagonists' lives, others are fantasy or dream sequences whose reality is open to question. The novel falls down when digressing into empty-headed, faux-philosophical musings: Jefferson's ghost watching a movie of his life in Heaven, commenting on how fake and sanitized everything is; chapters debating the meaning of colors and perception; a weird running subplot of a prisoner and guard arguing with each other; and, most inexplicable of all, a chapter where Jefferson turns into a monkey. Many brickbats aimed at this novel involve O'Connor's depicting Jefferson and Hemings' relationship as a romance for the ages, which is objectionable when it's a master forcing himself on his slave (segments like Hemings marveling over Jefferson's penis size don't help). Even if it were less controversial, it would be a murky, self-impressed mess, so wrapped up in onanistic navel-gazing that it rarely stops to make sense.

[Jo Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the most unique books I have ever read/listened to...I think it would make for good discussion...no doubt many would hate the dream sequences, the surreal flash backs between Monticello and modern day urban living, including "seeing" Jefferson and Sally at an art exhibit, on the subway, camping in the woods, etc., and many would love its diversity. I am somewhere in-between: intrigued, entertained, amused. The author definitely took liberties in his portrayal of the characters, especially Sally Hemings, but I enjoyed those liberties, and the thoughts of Jefferson, whose words of anti-slavery contrast greatly with the realities of slave ownership. His 37 year relationship with Sally, who we know very little about in actuality, is intriguing. This is a 3.5 rating for me!

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given the potential explosive nature of the material Stephen O'Connor intrepidly and imaginably explores the 37 year relationship between Jefferson and Hemings . He acknowledges the unequal power relationship , the racism , the sexism , exploitation and white male entitlement in vivid prose. He also though wishes to believe that there is a genuine feeling of affection between the two . It is how the author juggles the reality of this cruel situation with the humanity of these two characters that propels the narrative .

[Chaitra · Rating 2 out of 5]

~~

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was really different from anything I have ever read before -- a combination of historical, sci-fi, stream of consciousness and post modern experimental fiction. I am still not sure how I feel about it. The writing was lovely and some parts I would have easily rated five stars. And some parts were very disturbing, or just plain strange.

What We Know For Sure: Thomas Jefferson had sexual relations with his slave Sally Hemings. Their relations went on for almost 40 years and Sally bore him six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. We know this because of DNA records and other historical evidence. There are currently about 1500 people in the U.S. who are descended from the Jefferson-Hemings line.

This question is: Was it love or was it rape?

In the midst of 3rd wave feminism, through a 21st century lens, we say Of course it was rape! She was fourteen years old! He was forty four! She was his slave and his property! Although technically, Sally was a free woman in Paris when the affair began. However, a fourteen year old girl, illiterate and penniless, had little chance of survival and was still totally dependent upon her master. Sally had no choice.

Sally Hemings was also the half sister of Jefferson's wife Martha. This being because Martha's father John Wayles had relations with his slave Betty Hemings, Sally's mother. Martha had died by the time they got to Paris. So Jefferson really began an affair with his dead wife's sister.

Before I go on, I feel compelled to add a few things: The age of consent in the American Colonies was twelve years old. After 1576, the age was lowered to ten. (Twelve was apparently too old for them???) In the 19th century some states further lowered the age of consent to seven! Edgar Allan Poe married his thirteen year old cousin, as did Jerry Lee Lewis. In 1957! So you see, a whole bunch of weird stuff has gone on in this country between grown men and teenage girls. America, the most Puritanical country in the world, has adored and celebrated some questionable things... Just sayin'.

I also feel compelled to add: Movies have been made in which Sally Hemings is portrayed as a "femme fatale", a temptress whom Jefferson simply could not resist. (These movies were made over 20 years ago. Hollywood would probably not get away with it today.) Nonetheless, Lolita lives on. If you don't believe me, I have two words: Jeffrey Epstein.

And yet.

If we insist that Sally Hemings was a lifelong rape victim, we are also saying that our 3rd president, writer of the Declaration of Independence, a man revered and respected throughout history, was also a rapist. Most Americans simply cannot reconcile this.

More Things We Know For Sure: Jefferson made arrangements for all of Sally's children to be freed when they reached age twenty one. (Some folks think this may have been Sally's bargain and reason for tolerating the relationship.)

After his death, Sally saved Jefferson's artifacts as her personal treasures and took them away from Monticello.(So, if he was such a rapist and she hated him, why save his remembrances?)

Jefferson died in enormous debt. Because of this, most of the slaves were auctioned off for the best price (though not Sally and her children.)

Author Stephen O'Connor makes a really sensitive and thoughtful portrayal of "what might have happened" in this relationship. Sally was trying to make the best of her situation. Jefferson was riddled with guilt throughout his life. (But not enough guilt to make him stop.) The great thing about this book is that it is so thought provoking. The research that went into it was meticulous. There are many details about political corruption as well as the institution of slavery itself.

What worked less for me were the sci fi and dream sequences. Jefferson is supposed to be in some sort of hell or purgatory in which justice is finally served... Some of it was interesting. Some of it just got too strange and, for me, lost focus. Also there is a good deal of repetition. 600 pages. Could have been shorter.

Nonetheless, it was worth reading.

I would rec this book for anyone who has an interest in American history, slavery, or the foundations of "democracy". Also anyone who enjoys weird experimental literature. Be warned: Not for the squeamish!

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's talk about one of my favorite reads this year so far. Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings by Stephen O'Connor isn't like any other book I've read before. It consists of journal entries mixed with historical documents, third person narrative, and a bit of poetry.
-
First of all, just know that it's extremely uncomfortable to read at times. Jefferson had power over his slaves, and to see him yield that power to attempt to seduce a young girl was infuriating. He is idiotic in his ignorance of the power dynamic, assuming that Sally's behavior has nothing to do with her position as slave. What I loved about this book was how Sally's character was developed. She was an angry woman, and I appreciated that portrayal. She becomes a deeply conflicted character because her anger and love for Jefferson are both there at times. It becomes a bit of Stockholm Syndrome really. How she deals with the conflict is the fascinating part. Once the world knows she is Jefferson's lover, she has to deal with not being accepted into any world. White people despise her, black people despise her, and she even despises herself. The first half of the book is the hardest to get through because it is clearly abuse and at first I thought the white male author had no place telling this story. There's controversy around that fact, and I understand it. I don't think the author was putting Jefferson on a pedestal at all, though. I think he was showing why Jefferson HIMSELF and others put him on the pedestal while showing us the true man behind the curtain. I do think that the emotions that his writing inspired were intentional and necessary to understand this story. -
There were some elements of magical realism that didn't work for me, but I just kind of ignored them. I loved that he followed history's timeline very well and let me learn quite a bit about this time in history. I'd highly recommend this book for what it showed about power dynamics, abuse, and resiliency. 5/5 stars with the caveat that this book is extremely painful at times. (Trigger warning: abuse, slavery, rape)

[Elizabeth Roberts-Zibbel · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely complicated novel for an extremely complicated topic. It alternates between straight narrative; a fictional written memoir by Sally Hemings (she did not become literate); post-death scenes in a Hell-like environment; factual written memoir from former slaves, children, and (obviously) both; factual written fragments by Thomas Jefferson; scenes where Thomas Jefferson is being forced by the Madisons to watch a movie of his life; scenes where Thomas Jefferson is a modern art student on a subway watching Sally Hemings from afar; scenes that are just ruminations on color; and even one scene where Thomas Jefferson (always, the main characters called by first and last names) is the alpha male in a group of apes at a zoo.

Very, very little is known about Sally Hemings. She was Jefferson’s wife’s half sister, as his father in law did the same to Sally’s mother that Jefferson did to Sally. Sally’s first pregnancy, resulting in a tiny dead baby girl, was conceived in Paris. She left Monticello after his death with 3 mementos of Jefferson: a shoe buckle, an ink well, and a pair of spectacles. That is what O’Connor based his portrait on and the idea that what started as what we would think of as “typical” forced rape evolved into a kind of combination of “love” and Stockholm Syndrome.

Oh so problematic. Rape because she was 16 when it started. Rape because he owned her, was literally her “master.” Even if she returned his feelings EVER, at any point, rape. A lifelong “partnership” never admitted to, never shown in public, despite its obviousness to everyone.

As I process why I think this novel succeeds, I have to wonder about whether what was written here about Jefferson’s childhood was true, that his mother was insane and beat his sister almost to death while he watched. It was very difficult to not sympathize with Jefferson when that is how the novel began. My next step will be to research that.

O’Connor’s afterword is essential to understanding his intentions.

Thomas Jefferson is never once excused here. But he is made human.

[Johanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hope I don't sound like an apologist by saying this is a really well written book. I didn't really care for the more post modern stuff (I, frankly, felt that the vast majority of it was unnecessary, including the Sally Hemings contraption pieces, the Jefferson ape piece). The actual narrative was written well. Obviously well-researched, there were wonderful details about Jefferson's life written.

BUT...it seems like O'Connor says he puts a certain amount of things in play in terms of racism and the master-slave relationship, but their impact is blunted and therefore this book comes off as everything many people say it does: 1,000 excuses to write a Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings romance novel. Or maybe it is BECAUSE of this that incidents that are supposed to portray race in the 18th/early 19th century seem not as effective. A romance between a master and his 14 year old slave (because she was fourteen, folks, not 15 or 16 as O'Connor writes) seems a bit hard to swallow, as well as said slave saying over and over that she's to blame and it's a sin. It is a sin, but not yours. Like, they have a private lodge where they retreat for trysts! What is this even?

But as for the "sin" there is an aspect of "it's the woman's fault too" from the postscript: "illuminating moral complexities to both sides of the relationship." I'm sorry....SHE'S A SLAVE. The moral complexity here? Is actually simple. He took advantage of her and there is no consent she could give.

So, this book may be "complex" but it's quite romanticized.

[Bernadette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read, interesting take on historical fiction, well researched. Tells the Hemings Jefferson story, from the quite well documented, yet lacking, Jefferson perspective, while adding in the missing from the history books Hemings side of his life.
Does a good job speculating on how Miss Sally Hemings felt about her life as Thomas Jefferson's "partner," her thoughts, interactions, observations, joys and pains. Since very little was actually written about her during that time, except by Jefferson's political rivals/enemies as a way to disparage Jefferson himself, with no thought whatsoever given to the effects of those writings on Miss Hemings, which is not surprising given the prevailing attitudes of white America that enslaving people of African descent was the right of whites, the author relies on writings of others who either were Hemings family descendants, or descendants of close family members.
Miss Hemings ruminations on the behavior, actions & conversations of the white society through which she moves are insightful to the discussion of white privilege. The author, himself a white male, executes this quite well, not making excuses for it as some writers do. Yet, in the end, he attempts to explain Jefferson's refusal to grant Ms. Hemings her freedom, even upon his death, as humane by citing laws of the state of Virginia as the rationale.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

12/1/2018 EDIT

I have to tack something onto the end here because thinking about this book has caused me to shift my analysis somewhat. I still think that the vacillation between showing the "flawed but genuine relationship between two people in love" and "toxic hypocrisy of a man abusing a disenfranchised minor" is a thematic masterpiece, but it's not to be taken at face value. Sally is still a child when she comes under his influence. Even if she, now older, believes she has made an informed adult decision to be with him, there's no denying the fact that she has been groomed for this very purpose. It's an abusive situation, full stop, and her being raised in it and into it takes any possibility of a relationship between them far from the realm of Even Remotely Okay.

When I read this book two years ago, I had a toxic figure in my life. I related absurdly much to Sally, and because of this the book helped me realize how bad the situation was and how much I needed to change things. For that alone, I have to keep my rating at five stars, because it may have very directly saved my mental health and livelihood. My living situation has since changed. My health is improved now that I have fewer ailments from internalized stress. My life is inordinately better than it was two years ago. Thanks, Stephen O'Connor.

That said, I did have a clouded impression of things when I first read the book because of my personal circumstances. I can't justify the story any more as having an ambivalent view of Sally and Jefferson when, even from this see-saw viewpoint, a compassionate reader can still conclude that Sally is the victim and Jefferson the perpetrator. There's really not any wiggle room if you take the time to think about it. I now view the book with the same lens I used to appreciate Lolita, which I ironically read immediately after this two years ago (subconsciously, I guess, I had a better grasp on the truth of their relationship).

Jefferson is such a sympathetic abuser, alternating between tenderness and hypocrisy, to show that even "caring" men carry out private atrocities. Sally is conflicted throughout all of it, convincing herself nonetheless that she is an independent woman capable of making her own decisions about this man who has manipulated her favor since she was a CHILD. The incredible lessons of this story do not come from taking her word literally, but from understanding the double-bind of being raised and trapped in this environment. In moments of clarity, she longs to be taken seriously and viewed (along with her race) as human. She wants a love where she has agency. Instead, she has been immersed in this smothering power dynamic since she was a young girl, under a gaze that, initially flattering, was never something she was equipped to handle without any prior experience of relationships or human equity. She is raised her entire life to be subservient to older white men, for god's sake; she knows nothing else. She copes as best as she can, hanging on to small instances of his kindness, chalking it all up to her informed decision as if she had any choice in the matter at all. This is an incredibly true depiction of life on the inside of one nastyass toxic relationship.

I'm probably projecting my own issues onto the book again, but so be it, there is a truth to this story that can't be denied. She is human, and she is conflicted, and she is every woman in a bad place who couldn't Just Leave. Know that Humbert Jefferson is the real monster here and he's doing everything in his power to make you think otherwise.

-------------------------------------------

12/06/2016

Five damn stars.

I don't know where to start. I don't even do reviews but I had to say...something. I picked up this book thinking it would be a hostile, windswept, love-gone-bad in the style of Wide Sargasso Sea, but then I started reading. And kept reading.

It's 600+ pages but smoothly paced and full of white space, so it does go quickly. The individual entries (not sure if some of them are long enough to be called chapters) seldom break six pages each, encouraging binge-reading. The present tense throughout adds to its odd, dreamy voice, which is only appropriate for a book which swings from intimate prose-poem narrative to dark comedy stage play in two pages flat. Seriously, one moment Sally is unwinding the impossible burdens of her life, and in the next scene Thomas Jefferson is reimagined as a spiteful chimpanzee discovering his captivity. This is the most formalistically schizophrenic book I have ever read, and I'm not convinced it isn't a little indulgent on O'Connor's part for that, but I definitely didn't stop reading.

Having read something in an early review about this book's postmodern tendencies, I was a little concerned as to how the author managed a fictionalized account of real people. Naturally there is so little conclusively known about the Jefferson/Hemings relationship that the subject invites speculation, but I was pleased to see that O'Connor had done his legwork in the research department. As he notes in an afterword, he read multiple biographies of Jefferson and the Hemings family, even visiting the former plantations and staying for some time in the Blue Ridge Mountains to capture the atmosphere while writing. Creative license aside, the book does ring true to its subject; I had gone into the story with some background on Jefferson's life and times from previous reading, and the timeline and major events do coincide with actual history (Jefferson's stay in Paris, the Callender scandal, his mounting debts, etc.). The text is even followed by a solid debriefing on what was and was not authorly invention, which may have been a little defensive for what remains, after all, fiction, but surely helped to underscore the book's real dedication to its subjects' legacy.

As far as the relationship between the titular characters, I'm still trying to process it myself. I had expected something more nuanced than the master-and-servant, Stockholm-syndrome, victim narrative which seems to stick in the public conscious, but I didn't expect the book to blow these dynamics wide, wide open. As the form constantly wavered between genres, so did my own thoughts and sympathies throughout the course of the reading--one moment I could identify with Jefferson's tenderness and anxieties, and the next I was astounded by his self-centric delusion. One chapter I understood Sally to be a young girl groomed for desires from which she could not defend herself, and the next she seemed a mature woman dealing with all the baggage and contradictions of her love. O'Connor demonstrates a profound understanding for identity politics and male-female power dynamics, which occasionally overwhelmed me to the point that I had to stop reading. For five minutes or so, that is, until I simply had to find out what happened next.

The most impressive thing about this book, to me, is that it ultimately didn't take a position in either condemning or defending Jefferson for his actions. It dedicates several chapters to mocking the public image of Jefferson, Founding Father, larger than life, but affords him some sympathy in a near-final scene as his weaknesses come into the public eye. Rather than taking a stance on his inscrutable character, it just presents him as a contradiction. The whole book embraces contradiction in its form and primary relationship to the extent that a moral isn't really discernible here, but that's exactly the point. It's not a narrative that ties up very neatly, but neither is history. It is open to the interpreter to draw out meaning.

Post script, it is as full of sex and post-sex scenes as you might expect, but for the most part they aren't gratuitous or cringe-inducing--a real accomplishment, given some of the contemporary lit standards of comparison.

[Alisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm giving this Stephen O'Connor's novel a 3 simply because I'm not at all sure what I think about it. I like historical fiction. I agree that the founding fathers should be characterized with all their flaws. There's a lot about postmodern fiction I find useful. You'd think I would be unambiguously crazy about this book. But I'm still thinking about it, trying to decide.

If you're looking for historical fiction in the vein of Phillippa Gregory or even Sharon Kay Penman, this is NOT THE BOOK FOR YOU. The fictionalized parts of the book involve the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings. We now know that Hemings bore Jefferson several children--DNA tests to the rescue! But we know very little about Hemings herself or the relationship she had with our third president. Was it simply a case of droit de seigneur, or did the two enjoy a more equal relationship? Hemings was the half-sister of Jeffferson's wife, Martha. In his grief for his wife, did Jefferson find comfort with her sister? Did Hemings love Jefferson? Did she resent the power he held over her? There's no way to know, as neither Hemings (who probably was not literate) nor Jefferson wrote a thing about it. In fact, the only historical references to Hemings are in Jefferson's account books and in newspaper articles purporting Jefferson's affair with "Dusky Sally."

I like the way O'Connor fictionalizes the affair between Jefferson and Hemings. It is complicated, with both characters fighting conflicting emotions. In O'Connor's telling, Hemings loves Jefferson, but she is disgusted with herself for doing so and often resents him. O'Connor gives Hemings a modern feminist's view, analyzing Jefferson's privilege in relation Hemings. But Hemings also knows that she is privileged because of her relationship with the master. She and her children hold important household positions. While Hemings enjoys her privilege, she also feels guilty about it. If the historical Sally Hemings analyzed her privilege in the modern way O'Connor has her do, she was a very unusual woman, indeed. But perhaps there was something in the back of her head, something that bothered her as she watched other slaves laboring in the fields. We will never know for sure.

O'Connor presents Jefferson as a flawed character, a man who is weak in some respects, a man who can't see the hypocrisy of the slave owner writing about all men being created equal. Jefferson is portrayed as attempting to curb his sexual desire for Sally, but eventually caving into it. I think our founding fathers' faults need to be exposed and examined, but I'm not sure I want to read about their erections. It borders on sacrilege. Understand I'm not a prude. It's not the sex scenes themselves that bother me; it's that O'Connor describes genitalia that belongs to our third president, the man who built Monticello, wrote the Declaration of Independence, and made the Louisiana Purchase. It is somehow more disturbing reading about his penis than it is the penis of Henry VIII.

I'm particularly torn in how I feel about O'Connor's postmodern flourishes. Thomas Jefferson is an ape; Thomas Jefferson goes to the movies; Thomas Jefferson rides a New York City subway. These sections often seem gimmicky and don't seem to add much to the characterization or storyline. O'Connor seems to be exploring the way Jefferson might feel about his relationship with Hemings if he were living now, but I'm not entirely sure of that.

I was deeply touched by the ending of the novel, when Hemings takes Jefferson's ink pot, spectacles, and shoe buckle for herself before everything in the house is sold. There is a poignancy in those items. I imagine Hemings watching Jefferson as he wrote at his desk, dipping his quill in to the ink pot, spectacles perched on the end of his nose, perhaps unaware of a loosely buckled shoe. These are the kind of items a woman would take if she really loved a man and really understood him and what was important to him. My heart ached for both of them, for the impossibility of their love, if, indeed, they really loved each other at all.

[Markus Molina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I'd say that the way Stephen O'Connor chose to tell this story was very ambitious, and for the most part entertaining. The narrative is very free flowing, and at it's best captures a variety of forms that prose can take, from the more poetic stylings to the more grounded. There are dreamy scenes where time and history can be examined or analyzed, and bizarre fantastical scenes mixing humor with anger or shame, mixing real life and imaginations of what might've been––All done to try and figure out the sphinx himself, Mr. Thomas Jefferson. Was he in love with his slaves? Could he be for the abolishment of slavery and own one of the largest slave plantations? Could he have a good heart despite his actions? What is a man remembered for? Is it all contextual depending on where we are as a society today?
So yeah, it was all very philosophical and fun to think about at it's best,

....but at it's worst. AT IT'S WORST, IT IS TRITE FETISH SMUT PORN. I DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT JEFFERSON'S ERECT VEINY MEMBER or HARDNESS, or IT, and whatever else it was called, entering into an unsure slave woman, who might or might not have liked it, and or may have convinced herself that maybe she did like it, or didn't eventually. Look, I give him credit for trying to make it a complex thing, but the sections were befuddled with so many emotions, and the writing became so much like penny paperback snuff writing, I was revolted! There are I would wager, about 50 pages of smut that made me feel embarrassed to read in this 600 page book, but it was enough, baby, it was enough. THE SIZE OF HIS VEINY MEMBER WAS DISCUSSED! IT WAS. THIS WAS OUR PRESIDENT. I CAN'T WAIT TO READ DONALD TRUMP'S HISTORICAL FICTION, THAT I MAY OR MAY NOT BE WRITING SOON, WHERE HE IS BEING PEED ON BY RUSSIAN HOOKERS, NOT THAT WILL BE TRUE SMUT. BELIEVE ME, THE VEINS AND THE SIZE WILL BE MENTIONED, AND SO WILL HIS LOVE FOR AT LEAST ONE OF THESE HOOKERS, AND THEIR SECRET LOVE MEETINGS AND CHILDREN, did I mention almost everyone's kids were dying all the damn time (Jefferson's time, not trump)? What a sad time. Slaves, dead children, erect veiny members to poke with... look overall, it was a pretty entertaining read.

[Laura Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this book a few months ago and have been meaning to comment on it ever since. Luckily, it’s the kind of book that stays with you for a long time: beautifully written, vividly imagined, full of heart and humanity, and unforgettable scenes: Thomas Jefferson as a child, Jefferson as a socially awkward politician, as a rapist, as an elderly narcissistic man, as a flawed human being full of contradictions; cruel, shallow, conniving, yet also generous, wise, inventive. Stephen O’Connor does a beautiful job in portraying Sally Hemings and giving her a voice, and showing her in all her complexity, in lucid evocative prose, which is an absolute pleasure to read. She is one of history’s voiceless, born into bondage, trapped by slavery and gender, yet as she’s portrayed, her intelligence and insight and instinct for survival illuminate her humanity and generosity of spirit, bringing Jefferson’s profound lack of those aspects into sharp relief. Combining scenes on a subway, a movie theater, Jefferson’s body as a wilderness, historical fact, philosophical meditations, and the unfolding narrative of love, desire and entitlement within a more conventional historical-fiction context, this book was masterfully written. I have to admit, I was initially daunted by its length, but once I cracked it open, I couldn’t put it down. Told in short, digestible (I hate to use that word but I can’t think of a better one at the moment) sections, I found myself reading just one more, one more, one more. Each section is a skillfully-crafted gem.

[Hadyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

REALLY mixed feelings about this one. It was about as good as a book on this subject matter could possibly be, which is very much damning with faint praise, no? It explores the power dynamic between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings in lots of different ways - recasting the main characters as 1) two equals on the subway in modern day; 2) black female prison guard and white prisoner; 3) white art student and color, 4) Dominant male ape; 5) through Thomas Jefferson's writings as well as their descendants' memoirs. Throughout the book I felt an ickiness to the whole thing, which is perhaps the point. Sally Hemings's possible conflicted feelings throughout the "relationship" were explored thoroughly, and Thomas Jefferson's hypocrisy on the subject of slavery was very much at the forefront of the book. All that made the ending with the selling off of Monticello's slaves after Jefferson's death all the more devastating.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Imaginative, ambitious and highly original. I can't say that I loved every bit of it (or even really followed some of it) but overall this was a great reading experience and an incredible accomplishment for a debut author. Takes a bit of concentration, but was one of those books that I just wanted to take to a quiet corner and pass the day with. Will not be to every reader's taste, but worked for me.

[Hardin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read! Mix of historical fiction, historic documents, and fantasy.

[Thirteen Orange Ivy Designs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d definitely put this at a 3.5, but I can’t quite put it at a 4. I loved the actual story happening but all the other imaginations throughout were not my cup of tea. To me it felt like the author did a bunch of writing exercises to get into the writing headspace and then just included them in the book. I do understand that those additions are a stylistic choice, and weren’t bad, it just isn’t what I’m interested in when I pick up historical fiction.
Without much really known about Sally, I think this book did a fine job at connection dots and imagining what could have happened and I appreciate that in a work of fiction and I really did enjoy Sally’s perspective. She deserves to be in more works of fiction and non fiction. Whether she had love for Jefferson or not in real life doesn’t negate the fact that she was still owned by him and therefore could only make choices for her life based on that fact.
I may not have understood all of the modernistic (or a lot of them to me seemed like afterlives Jefferson was living) random tales throughout the book, but I didn’t love that sally was also kind of bound to him in most of those.
Anyway. It was good writing and as I said I enjoyed the actual story, fictional as it was.

[Lily W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like how a chef pairs food with wine, reading The Hemings of Monticello and then Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings is one most powerful two-punch book combos I’ve read this year.

While Annette Gordon Reed artfully detailed the political, familial, and historical facts of the day, Stephen O’Connor queries into the details of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship, particularly delving into Sally’s feelings on race, identity, freedom, and choice. Does she betray her people by choosing Jefferson? Did she love him? Did she even have a choice?

I ache for the happiness of so many people who never experienced freedom and choice. I ache for a great thinker who let his ideals fall to the wayside when they were not accepted by the public.

Final thought: A few of the Goodreads comments on The Hemings of Monticello suggest that Gordon Reed is angry or she’s speaking down to readers when she continues to bring up the evils of slavery. We SHOULD be angry! I suggest those commentators read the slave auction scene in Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings. Let’s get angrier and watch out for the patterns occurring in modern day society.

[Robin Drummond · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book. I expected to learn a lot about at least the two central characters and the context of their times.

Instead, I was confused and found this narrative impossible to follow. I'm sure it's just me; plenty of other readers made sense out of it. I did learn something I didn't know: most foods gave Jefferson indigestion. Proof that I was paying attention.

[Brianna Melick · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm still trying to find the best words for this review, so it's in the works but might take a while. Like some relationships. I need some space first.

[Chris Chester · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an ambitious undertaking for an author if ever there was one. It's not just that Thomas Jefferson is one of the most written-about figures in American political history. It's that Stephen O'Connor steered his work directly in the path of the most morally-fraught and little-known-about aspects of Jefferson's august life: his relationship with his slave Sally Hemings.

Let me get this out of the way, right out of the gate: What Thomas Jefferson did to Sally Hemings was rape. By the modern conception of sexual relations, it can be nothing else. Their relationship put them as far apart in terms of institutional power as it was possible to conceive of at the time.

But what makes Stephen O'Connor's work so incredible is that, while it takes that power dynamic as granted, it acknowledges that their relationship as it was lived must have been infinitely more rich and complicated than just a drumbeat of slavery, sexual assault and rape.

Nothing really is known about Hemings' lived experience, so her story as O'Connor depicts it is almost totally one of his own creation. I'm sure opinions differ on this score, but my opinion is that his version of her life and point of view is both fair and richly nuanced. Hemings is depicted as keenly aware of her place in this power dynamic, and deeply unsettled by the contradictions inherent in Jefferson's affections.

Over the course of the book she is terrified of him, attracted to him, resigned to him, contemptuous of him, pitying him, raging at him, and despairing of him. The original sin of his having unilaterally decided on this relationship never quite leaves it, but O'Connor recognizes that time and learned experience would have created a much more complicated and unsettled dynamic than just master and slave.

The contradictions in Jefferson himself have been explored before but are in evidence here as well. The man is known for his lofty words and principles as one of the founders of the country, but the hypocrisy inherent in the lived experiences of his 600 some odd slaves, Hemings not least among them, casts a pall on everything he would subsequently do. His wheelings and dealings as an American president aren't excluded either, with O'Connor injecting a good amount of modern cynicism about the office and what it does to supposedly principled men.

Jefferson as a person obviously isn't spared either. Though he has the institutional power, he is often depicted as pleading, deferential and weak in his relationship with Hemings. And his hypocrisy and fecklessness late in life is not only known to other characters, but to the man itself.

Probably my favorite parts of the book are the bizarre magical realism scenes where Jefferson sees Hemings on a modern subway train or when the Madisons take Jefferson to go see a biopic about himself. As we sit here in our glass houses casting judgement on one of the juggernauts of American political thought, O'Connor resurrects Jefferson himself to reflect upon his life and what it means from a contemporary standpoint. What he finds is a cartoonish depiction that, relative to the rest of the novel, excludes the complexity and ambiguity of a real human life, whether as a god or a devil.

That's probably the part that makes this book so endearing. It doesn't just point out how Jefferson as saint and Jefferson as sinner are inherently incomplete perspectives, but it really lets you stew in the author's depiction of what it might really have looked like to be Jefferson. It might be the most sober look we're likely to get.

An excellent case, if ever there was one, for the ways that fiction often lets the reader get closer to the truth than non-fiction!

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise of "Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings" is great-- very little is known about Sally Hemings, and even less is known about her (strongly suspected) relationship with Thomas Jefferson; and, this novel fills that knowledge gap, imagining what their relationship was like together, from Sally's perspective.

More importantly though, in filling that gap, the book creates interesting, realistic characters, engaging conflicts, and feverous, surrealistic interludes. It's a fun book that I learned historical facts from,** while also empathizing with the characters. Some of the book's weirdness is a bit too weird (e.g., I found Jefferson's continuous dream of Hemings inventing a large, indescribable device to be confusing, even if it did show how Jefferson felt about Hemings), but the author mostly uses fantasy to good end, treating it as either a comical respite from the difficulties of Hemings' life (e.g., Jefferson's repeated dream of Hemings as a future prison guard that continually beats him was great and usually a welcome break in the narrative) or an acknowledgment of the difficulties of creating a fictional portrayal of a very famous character (e.g., Jefferson's repeated dream of his watching a biopic film of his life, with Dolly and James Madison, seemed to serve to criticize the romanticization of Jefferson as a great man).

I learned a lot about the book, and--as a result--Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings--from the Author's Note at the end. I like how O'Connor recognizes that he presented Jefferson as a strong, idealistic public figure, and weak, overly loving, self-involved private figure. I imagine there was a lot of truth to this characterization. I also like how O'Connor presented the Jefferson-Hemings relationship--starting out as rape, and then progressing to obliging acceptance as the best of bad options, and then, over time, becoming something close to love (or, a Stockholm Syndrome attachment). It seems like a possible scenario, and made for an interesting dynamic and powerful critique of Jefferson.


** Interesting historical facts I learned from the book:
> Sally Hemings was 1/4 black, as her grandmother was impregnated by her master, and her mother was likewise impregnated by her master (a different master). Thus, Sally Hemings and, esp. her children with Jefferson, likely looked white and later passed in society as white.
> Sally Hemings was the half-sister of Thomas Jefferson's first wife, Martha, as their father had Martha through his married relationship and had Sally through his slave-master relationship. All this means that Sally ended up being the slave of her half-sister (Martha), and might further explain Thomas Jefferson's attraction to Sally (i.e., her resemblance to his deceased wife).
> Thomas Jefferson was a terrible public speaker, as his public addresses were characterized by their low volume. He only gave two formal addresses during his time as president, both of which were widely ridiculed. He started the tradition of writing his state of the union speeches, instead of publicly speaking them--a tradition that lasted up until President Wilson.
> Thomas Jefferson presented himself as a public opponent of slavery, attempting to have it outlawed in Virginia during his time as governor, and advocating for its prohibition in the Northwest Territories.