{"id":46549,"date":"2016-04-11T00:59:02","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T00:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=46549"},"modified":"2016-04-11T00:59:02","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T00:59:02","slug":"thomas-jefferson-dreams-of-sally-hemings-a-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=46549","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings: A Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings: A Novel<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Viking Books<\/a>
\n2016-04-05
\n624 pages
\nHardcover ISBN: 9780525429968
\nEbook ISBN: 9780698410336<\/p>\n

Stephen O\u2019Connor<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A debut novel about Thomas Jefferson<\/a> and Sally Hemings<\/a>, 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.<\/em><\/p>\n

Novels such as Toni Morrison\u2019s<\/a> Beloved<\/em>, The Known World<\/em> by Edward P. Jones<\/a>, James McBride\u2019s<\/a> The Good Lord Bird<\/em> and Cloudsplitter<\/em> by Russell Banks<\/a> 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\u2019t. Now Stephen O\u2019Connor 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<\/a> and Sally Hemings<\/a>. O\u2019Connor\u2019s protagonists are rendered via scrupulously researched scenes of their lives in Paris<\/a> and at Monticello<\/a> that alternate with a harrowing memoir written by Hemings after Jefferson\u2019s death, as well as with dreamlike sequences in which Jefferson watches a movie about his life, Hemings fabricates an \u201cinvention\u201d that becomes the whole world, and they run into each other \u201cafter an unimaginable length of time\u201d on the New York City subway<\/a>. O\u2019Connor is unsparing in his rendition of the hypocrisy of the Founding Father and slaveholder who wrote \u201call men are created equal,\u201d 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\u2014and about the survival of hope even in the midst of catastrophe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings: A Novel Viking Books 2016-04-05 624 pages Hardcover ISBN: 9780525429968 Ebook ISBN: 9780698410336 Stephen O\u2019Connor A 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,15,20],"tags":[918,23491,477,23490],"class_list":["post-46549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-media-archive","category-novels","category-usa","tag-sally-hemings","tag-stephen-oconnor","tag-thomas-jefferson","tag-viking-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46550,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46549\/revisions\/46550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}