Monticello: A Daughter and her Father by Sally Cabot Gunning

"Martha Jefferson Randolph is the eldest daughter of Thomas Jefferson and has spent the last five years in France. She now returns to her mountain-top childhood home of Monticello. She has every belief that the running of the house will be up to her. Things don’t precisely go as planned though when her father announces he’s been nominated to be the Secretary of State. Their life continues, Jefferson moving up the Political ladder and Martha, at home, having to care for eleven children and deal with her husband’s sullen moods and silences. Though Gunning made a good effort and it did hook me because I wanted to see how it ended overall it was vastly underwhelming." 

⭐⭐⭐

Pros: Martha was an honest, open-minded and progressive woman, for her time. 

Cons: The plethora of children (both from Martha and Sally) as well as the multiple plantations was a lot to keep track of, so much so that I just stopped trying eventually//Marth'a extreme dislike towards Sally and her cluelessness as to the fact that Sally kept having children but a father was never named, open your eyes!. 

Full Review: 

Martha is the eldest daughter of Thomas Jefferson's second marriage. When he lost his wife, he vowed to never re-marry and he has kep that promise. They are now returning to Martha's childhood home and Jefferson's chateau, Monticello. 

Martha could not be happier to be home but worries that now the running of the house will fall to her. When she arrives though, it's obvious that the slaves have it well in hand. Also, her father drops a bomb-shell, explaining that he's soon to move to New York and serve as the Secretary of State. More change is to come as they attend a wedding and Martha meets a distant cousin, Thomas Randolph and they fall in love. 

Their soon married and Martha begins having one child after another. Though she fears that she'll struggle as her mother did in childbirth, such is not the case and she gives birth to many healthy children. She helps her husband, Tom, run his many plantations, as well as she can, though he's often corresponding with his father-in-law and asking for loans, since his father's death left him seriously in debt. 

As the years pass and Jefferson moves up the political ladder to eventually become President, Martha is both proud of her Father but also, rather disheartened, since she sees him less and less. Also, she and Tom's money troubles just seem to keep growing and growing. Add to the fact that Sally, keeps having children but with no known Husband, Martha starts to wonder. As does the public. Stories start to appear in newspapers about Jefferson and his slave concubine, Sally. 

Though Martha and Tom both try desperately to get Jefferson to remand the statements, he does nothing about it. And even when Martha tries to gently approach the subject of who Sally's childrens father is, again, Jefferson shuts her down in that quiet, polite way of his. 

The ending was bleak but honestly it went on for 150 pages too long. The fact that Jefferson was the father of Sally's children, though thrown at her in multiple ways from multiple people, never seemed to land on Martha. Or she was just being willfully ignorant. Either way, by about the third time the subject was cautiously approached, I just gave up. 

It was the scandal behind this book and how Gunning handled it that hooked me. She did an acceptable job at first but 75% of the way through you just wanted to scream at Martha to open her damned eyes! She was either stubborn or clueless or both but it was just frustrating in the end. It was an interesting read but it became tiresome by the end.