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Norm is completing a historical novel titled Sally: Mistress of Monticello, an episodic account of the relationship between the widower Thomas Jefferson and his beautiful slave, Sally Hemings.

Each chapter, marked by a date and place, contains reference to a verifiable event. Jefferson left records of his whereabouts and associations nearly every day of his adult life—a life of achievement accompanied by frequent turbulence and loss. As author of the nonfiction Diagnosing Jefferson, Norm was able to compose dialogue and reasoned narrative based on his knowledge of Jefferson’s complex personality and day-to-day activities.

Sally, half-sister to Thomas’s late wife, is elevated from others’ portrayals as a passive and brooding victim to a self-educated, lively, and often assertive person. She bore eight children by Jefferson, four of whom survived and went free. She was a helpmate who became Monticello housemistress and was often in conflict with his daughter (and her niece) Martha Randolph.

When their affair began in Paris, Sally was a free woman, for France did not acknowledge slavery.  Pregnant with their first child from what Norm describes as a romance consummated between exceptional equals, Sally chose Thomas over freedom and returned willingly to enslavement in Virginia.

Norm contends Jefferson would not have spent 38 years faithfully—in a relationship he defended uncompromisingly and quietly—with a woman of any less character and commitment.

Upcoming appearances

 

--Norm will speak on Networking for Book Publication, Kansas Authors' Club District 2, Antioch Branch, Johnson County Library, 8700 Shawnee Mission Pkwy., Merriam KS, Saturday, January 14, 2012, 9:30 a.m.

No registration necessary. For more information contact Susie Nightingale, President, (785) 760-1274.

--Explaining the Perplexing Thomas Jefferson, a three-session course by Norm Ledgin for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Continuing Education, University of Kansas.

Aberdeen Village, 17500 W. 119th St., Olathe, KS, Mondays, Feb. 20 and 27, 2012, and March 5, 2012, 2-4 p.m.

--Genius as an Abnormality, a three-session course for the Osher, Lifelong Learning Institute, Continuing Education, University of Kansas.

Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City, 5801 W. 115th St., Overland Park, KS, Thursdays, March 15, 22, and 29, 2012, 2-4 p.m.

To register for either course, call toll-free 877-404-5823 or 785-864-5823, or register online at www.Osher.ku.edu