America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie – 624 pages
Book Blurb:
From her earliest days, Patsy Jefferson knows that though her father loves his family dearly, his devotion to his country runs deeper still. As Thomas Jefferson’s oldest daughter, she becomes his helpmate, protector, and constant companion in the wake of her mother’s death, traveling with him when he becomes American minister to France.
It is in Paris, at the glittering court and among the first tumultuous days of revolution, that fifteen-year-old Patsy learns about her father’s troubling liaison with Sally Hemings, a slave girl her own age. Meanwhile, Patsy has fallen in love—with her father’s protégé William Short, a staunch abolitionist and ambitious diplomat. Torn between love, principles, and the bonds of family, Patsy questions whether she can choose a life as William’s wife and still be a devoted daughter.
My Review: 4 stars
America’s First Daughter introduced me to the brave, smart, devoted, motherless mother (11 times over), Martha “Patsy” Jefferson, daughter of Thomas Jefferson.
Although this book is Historical Fiction with the fictitious parts shared in the author’s note, it doesn’t read like most drama filled historical fiction novels do. Perhaps because it’s written based off the actual 18,000 letters that Jefferson wrote during his political career’s ascent. It’s a long book and read like a long book, not at all fast paced in its telling. It’s for that reason I was torn between 3.5 and 4.
The author had wonderful cameos and insights from other famous women in history such as Dolley Madison and Abigail Adams. Plus star players in our revolution such as Lafayette, Hamilton and Burr were also in the text. After the good fortune of seeing Hamilton in NYC, it was left unclear why Hamilton and Jefferson were so opposed to one another, but this book cleared it up.
Patsy is an unsung hero of keeping her father sane and sensible at times of much unrest. Her undiluted devotion to him would cause years of therapy in today’s day and age. I enjoyed her love story with two very different men, which added a nice lightness to the book. Knowing she lived the end of years contentedly was comforting as she had plenty of hardship during her overlong marriage and financial hardship.
Quotes I liked:
I’ll tell you a secret about being happy, Tom. Sometimes you just have to pretend at it until it becomes real.”
-“A soiled reputation in an ordinary person may reduce them to impoverishment, but a soiled reputation in someone like the queen may take down a government.”
-“What’s important is that you can be a wife and mother or you can be a devoted daughter all your life. You can’t be both. Not when Thomas Jefferson is your father.”
-“I’m not only my father’s daughter, but also a daughter of the nation he founded. And protecting both is what I’ve always done.”
-“Sons of a revolution fight for liberty. They give blood, flesh, limbs, their very lives. But daughters . . . we sacrifice our eternal souls.”
-“But after thirty-four years of marriage, I now saw union between man and woman was the same as union among the states-as a series of debates and compromises that might hold it altogether for a few more years, or end in painful separation”
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