Hemingses of Monticello (WW Norton & Co)

This epic work tells the story of the Hemings family, whose close blood ties to the third president of America had been systematically expunged from history until very recently. Now, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemingses from their origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family's dispersal after Thomas Jefferson's death in 1826. It brings to life not only Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson but also their children and Hemings' siblings, who shared a father with Jefferson's wife, Martha. "The Hemingses of Monticello" sets the family's compelling saga against the backdrop of revolutionary America, Paris on the eve of revolution, 1790s Philadelphia and plantation life at Monticello, Jefferson's estate in Virginia. Much anticipated, this book promises to be the most detailed history of an American slave family ever written.