JEFFERSON AND MONTICELLO [Hardcover]

J. McLaughlin
P.O. Box 144
Clemson, SC 29633 USA

For more on the bookplate you can visit http://jeffersonand monticello.blogspot.com

Jack McLaughlin

Unfortunately, the execution didn't meet expectations and this is most noticable in the areas related to the editing. I had difficulty getting past the meandering style. The anecdotes hop around chronologically, and are not tied together well. There is unnecessary repetition within the annecdotes. Even the grammar is off. (I'm not an editor, so as soon as I extend criticism I'm opening myself up as a target, but I recognize a few errors that would've made my high school English teacher cringe. Where one does this professionally, a higher standard is expected.)

Mr. McLaughlin's book could have been tightend up considerably, and structured in a less meandering way for me to have found greater benefit from reading this book.

It goes without saying that Jefferson was an extraordinarily gifted human being, highly creative in many areas, including political thought and architecture. Yet, as this book makes plain, he was also very conventional in many ways. This was particularly true of his attitude towards women: "Like most men of his age, Jefferson believed women's interests were to be confined chiefly to housekeeping and childbearing. ... He also felt strongly that women, plain or fancy, brilliant or dull, had a single purpose in life, marriage and subordination to a husband."

McLaughlin's book shows Jefferson to be an extremely private person, one who for example destroyed all correspondence with his mother and with his wife. Thus any biography of him necessarily requires a great deal of interpretation to fill in the gaps. Although McLaughlin does an admirable job of doing so, his understanding may nevertheless be incomplete. He states, "If there is an identity theme to Jefferson's personality ... it is contained in the Head-Heart letter [to Maria Cosway]. Such a theme might be stated this way: the need for a tight rational control over life's exigencies must be balanced by an ability to feel and express love. It was only within the framework of family relationships--his wife, daughters, and grandchildren--that Jefferson was able to strike this balance." What goes unexamined is Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings--was this love? If so, what is is about Jefferson that allowed him to have lasting love only with a much younger woman of color who was also his slave? The record of Jefferson's relationship with Hemings is not revealed in Monticello, and so remains out of McLaughlin's reach. Nevertheless, McLauglin sheds a great deal of light on a most mysterious man.