The President's Daughter

Starred review from October 3, 1994
Chase-Riboud's first novel, Sally Hemings, reignited an old, unresolved controversy: Did Thomas Jefferson carry on a decades-long affair and produce seven illegitimate children with his mulatto slave? The author's engaging new novel continues the Hemings saga by handing the reins of narration primarily to Harriet Hemings, Sally's daughter by the President. The story opens in 1822, on the eve of Harriet's 21st birthday, the day on which, her father has promised, she may leave Monticello and journey north to freedom. To Harriet, the child of a distant father and a remote mother, the choice between living as a slave and leading a life in which her white skin, red hair and green eyes will allow her to pass as white is no choice at all. No matter where she runs, however-New York, London, Paris, Florence-Harriet will end up feeling as if her life is nothing but a duplicitous lie. Chase-Riboud incorporates elements of both pulp (dark secrets, presidential intrigues, sex scenes) and higher-brow fiction (fearless discussions of complex issues such as slavery, war, skin color and gender equality), and she seamlessly joins the two. Like its prequel, this is lushly entertaining history-as-fiction, and just possibly fiction-as-history, that's going to raise eyebrows-and probably hackles as well.