P.S. Insights, Interviews & More … *
About the authors
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Meet Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
About the book
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The Paris Letters—New Details About the Life of Our “Cher Jeffy”
Walking in Patsy Jefferson’s Footsteps: A Conversation with the Authors
Reading Group Guide
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For Further Reading
About the authors
Meet Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
STEPHANIE DRAY is an award-winning, bestselling, and two time RITA Award–nominated author of historical women’s fiction. Her critically acclaimed series about Cleopatra’s daughter has been translated into eight different languages and won NJRW’s Golden Leaf. As Stephanie Draven, she is a national bestselling author of genre fiction and American-set historical women’s fiction. She is a frequent panelist and presenter at national writing conventions and lives near the nation’s capital. Before she became a novelist, Stephanie was a lawyer, a game designer, and a teacher. Now she uses the stories of women in history to inspire the young women of today.
LAURA KAMOIE has always been fascinated by the people, stories, and physical presence of the past, which led her to a lifetime of historical and archaeological study and training. She holds a doctoral degree in early American history from the College of William and Mary, has published two nonfiction books on early America, and most recently held the position of Associate Professor of History at the U.S. Naval Academy before transitioning to a full-time career writing genre fiction as Laura Kaye, the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books. Her debut historical novel, America’s First Daughter, coauthored with Stephanie Dray, allowed her the exciting opportunity to combine her love of history with her passion for storytelling. Laura lives amid the colonial charm of Annapolis, Maryland, with her husband and two daughters.
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About the book
The Paris Letters
New Details About the Life of Our “Cher Jeffy”
AMERICA’S FIRST DAUGHTER was many years in the making. From the dinner at a writers’ conference where we conceived of the idea to the crazy night we stayed up past 3 A.M. outlining the plot, to the many months of research and writing, it was always a labor of love. One that we were proud to finish in July 2015, when we handed in the corrected galleys for this novel and toasted our accomplishment.
As multi-published authors, we both know the sense of relief and pride that comes with finishing a book, but also the sadness at leaving beloved characters and their world behind. In this case, though, we felt confident that we’d uncovered everything that we could about Martha “Patsy” Randolph Jefferson.
So imagine our surprise when, on August 12, 2015, we saw an announcement from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation that a family of descendants had made publicly available a cache of new and previously unknown letters, most of which were addressed to the heroine of this novel during the years in which she lived in Paris.
Our excitement at learning there were, indeed, new things to discover about our heroine was matched only by our anxiety that we might not get the chance to include them in this novel. We knew that we wouldn’t have the opportunity to write in entirely new storylines—which Patsy’s previously unknown relationship with the Duke of Dorset might have justified because of what it reveals both about our heroine’s life choices and the political ramifications of the attention she received, not to mention her father’s state of mind. But we hoped that by adding many new details into the existing story—such as our heroine’s popularity with the men in Paris, the anonymous love notes she received, her closeness with her convent friends, and the artificial flowers she made to give as gifts—our book would offer the most current study of Martha Jefferson Randolph, including information not revealed in any of her biographies to date.
A particular favorite among the new letters was this one, from Maria Ball to Patsy, dated June 23, 1789: “I make you my compliments Dear Jefferson, as you took the prize. I heard of your party at the Palais Royale with the Duke of Dorset and his two nieces. A gentleman told me he had seen you and that you remained there till it was quite duskish and that the duke seemed to care very much about you, which I am not surprised, my dear Jef. His choice can only honor him and make many, many people jealous.”* Letters like this bring Patsy’s younger years to life in a way that rarely happens in the eighteenth century, and absolutely enchanted us, especially when we learned that on August 7, 1789, the duke sent Patsy a “simple ring” as a token of his affection after she’d refused to accept a diamond ring—and, possibly, a proposal—he’d given her. In the eighteenth century, a diamond ring need not have signified an intent of marriage, but the context of Patsy’s refusal led us to think that she could’ve been a duchess!
Thankfully, the team at William Morrow was as excited about this development as we were and made special allowances for us to dig through the treasure trove of new letters to bring the heroine of this book even more fully alive. We hope you enjoy reading these details as much as we enjoyed discovering them.
—SD & LK
Walking in Patsy Jefferson’s Footsteps
A Conversation with the Authors
BEFORE UNDERTAKING this project, the authors separately visited Monticello and other historical sites in Virginia and France. However, in writing together, they thought a joint field trip to some of the Virginia settings in America’s First Daughter was called for. And, oh, the adventure they had.
Laura: There were a couple of reasons I wanted to take this joint field trip to Virginia. First, since I was a girl walking the Antietam Battlefield, I’ve always felt that past events and people leave a mark on places. To me, a site’s past often feels tangibly present. So I wanted to see what Monticello and Tuckahoe felt like. As a historian, I’ve always believed there is a lot to be gained from walking in a historical person’s footsteps—learning what you can see from her room or how long it will take to walk between places or how sound travels through a house all give you a deeper understanding that you can’t always get from documents, especially for a novel where you want the evocative details. Even more than writing nonfiction, writing fiction requires you to get inside the head and heart of a historical figure, and putting yourself in their physical spaces helps with that in so many unexpected ways. Field trips were always a big part of my teaching, and they certainly inform how I learn about the past, too.
Steph: I agree that if people leave some essence of themselves behind in this world, the work of a historical novelist is to channel it. Trying to understand the good and bad decisions of an important historical figure is an effort to make sense of the present world they bequeathed to us. But trying to get inside that historical figure’s head and heart is a way of touching the past. Both are exercises in empathy that gave us goosebumps. Especially when walking the same paths that our characters walked. There were many times that our theories were borne out by evidence we found on this field trip. It was important to do it together and not just because we enjoy each other’s company so much. We’d both been to some of these places before, but the aha moments we experienced because we had two sets of eyes on it were amazing.
Laura: Absolutely. One of the most memorable aha moments occurred when we were standing outside the black fence around the Jefferson family graveyard at Monticello. Next to Jefferson’s tall obelisk monument, I noticed a plaque detailing who was buried in the cemetery and where. And the plat of the burials showed something so surprising that we had a total writerly freak-out as we absorbed all its implications—Patsy isn’t buried next to her husband. Instead, Jefferson is buried between Patsy and Tom Randolph, and Patsy lays next to her father. If that isn’t emblematic of so much about the relationships of these three people, we don’t know what is. That moment wouldn’t have meant as much if we hadn’t been there together.
Steph: Yes, but of course, because we were there together, I’m afraid we made a bit of a menace of ourselves at Monticello! While all the other people in our group tour stood gazing admiringly at far more famous relics, we nearly tripped over each other to get a closer look at William Short’s green and gold embossed grooming kit, which included, to our delight, a chocolate pot. (No one else seemed to find it nearly as amusing that Short’s belongings are on display in the Madison Room, given the animosity between the two men.) Then, after asking a litany of strange questions, we tried to reconstruct the violent altercation between Thomas Mann Randolph and Charles Bankhead in the dining room. I’m fairly certain they put a security guard on us after that incident … at least until we explained what we were about!
Laura: Oh, William’s shaving kit was such a find! And exactly the kind of thing that made the visit to Monticello so valuable. We learned details not often remarked upon or recorded in the documentary record. Like how Patsy’s daughters made necklaces out of berries from the stinky chinaberry trees, how small the dining room is despite them somehow fitting in fifty guests during Lafayette’s reunion visit, and how Patsy’s bedroom overlooked Mulberry Row—which seemed so fitting and even symbolic given both her ambivalence about slavery and tendency to see things about the world that her father preferred to block out.
Steph: Yes, I remember staring out Patsy’s window, trying to see with her eyes. And I’m so glad that you brought up Patsy’s daughters, because we had another great find involving them. We really got a feel for their personalities in exploring the attic cuddy office that they fashioned for themselves in the eaves behind the dome room. There wasn’t a lot of privacy in that noisy house where children shared beds under sloped ceilings on the third floor, and where Jefferson’s unending stream of guests made demands on the family below. That Jefferson’s granddaughters wanted a place to themselves at the top of the house—even if they had to share it with the wasps—so that they could study instead of manage a household tells us a lot about them. And speaking of the top of the house, it was from this vantage point that we first realized just how far Tom Randolph’s own secluded study in the North Pavilion was. Patsy put him about as far away from her bedroom as she could get him when their marriage deteriorated, and we thought there was some significance in that.
Laura: We learned a lot about Tom from this trip, too, especially on our visit to Tuckahoe Plantation, the Randolph family seat near Richmond. From the moment we made the very long drive up the shadowy tree-lined driveway, Tuckahoe had a dark, heavy feeling that neither of us could shake. It was like the Randolph survived there despite the fact that four other families have lived in the house since. And, then, as if Tom was acknowledging our presence, right after we parked, a dust devil whipped up and slammed into the side of the car. We looked at each other and both offered Tom some acknowledgment right back!
Steph: We already knew, of course, that some very unhappy people had lived at Tuckahoe, and that dark and heavy mood was reflected in both the restored black walnut paneling in the house’s foyer and the false windows on the brick sides. But nothing illustrated the oddness of Tuckahoe more than the date etched into a pane of glass in what may have once been a sitting room. Our tour guide told us it was part of a family tradition where the Randolph girls would carve into the glass to prove their engagement rings were made of diamond. But there was only one date in the glass—March 16, 1789, the day Tom’s mother died. Back outside, Laura was all but scaling the facade to get a decent picture of that pane, because we came up with an alternate explanation pretty much on the spot: It was Nancy Randolph’s vindictive departing gesture to Gabriella Harvey.
Laura: That house left such a strong impression on us! And, as if all of that wasn’t strange enough—the Randolph cemetery lies within a totally enclosed brick wall with no gate or door and not a single Randolph burial is marked with a headstone, only a shared plaque on one of the walls. It’s possible the original cemetery was destroyed by natural elements long ago, but it gave us the impression that the Randolphs took no more care of one another in death than they had in life. So in spite of its beauty, Tuckahoe gave us a sad, heavy, troubled feeling that seemed to fit Tom so well—and maybe all the trauma and anger that existed within those walls helps explain the troubles Tom had. Tuckahoe definitely had a “feeling” that informed our writing.
Steph: And the difference at Monticello was noticeable. It’s important to remember that Jefferson spent a part of his childhood at Tuckahoe, which must have informed his ideas about what a great house should be. Though it sits on a bluff above the James River, Tuckahoe’s face is on a flat plain, everything about it exhibiting a bleak, near-militant control over the landscape. And yet, Monticello, by contrast, sits at the top of a mountain, where Jefferson’s fields, orchards, and roads are carved gracefully into the slopes, as if he were in a continuous negotiation with nature. From zigzag rooftop gutters that collected water in the cistern, to the fifty-mile view of the countryside, everything about Monticello seems to have sprung from a vision. It was a reminder that Jefferson strove to find a balance between his idealism and his sense of ruthless reality, not just on his plantation but in the vast nation unfolding below it. Sometimes he succeeded in that, and sometimes he didn’t.
Laura: Which brings us to one thing both sites had in common: the presence of spaces related to the history of slavery. Tuckahoe has one of the oldest remaining plantation streets in Virginia, complete with slave quarters, kitchen, smokehouse, storehouse, and stable. Archaeologists at Monticello have found the remains of numerous workshops and quarters, which are now marked, interpreted, and in some cases rebuilt for visitors to see. One cannot visit either plantation and forget that enslaved labor made the social life, economy, and business of these places possible. Mulberry Row was the heart of the enslaved community at Monticello. It was where countless boys began their labor in the nailery and where numerous women manufactured cloth in the textile factory. It was where the Hemings family had their cabins, and where Sally Hemings lived and raised her children—Jefferson’s children. Just imagining how Sally made her way each day to Jefferson’s chambers—either through the private spaces of his greenhouse or past the kitchen, under the south terrace, into the basement, and up the stairs that came to the first floor right outside his rooms—reinforced to us how slavery was both ubiquitous and hidden in plain sight, how some of the people who were most important to not only Patsy’s life but to the founding of this nation were hidden.
Steph: Erased even. And I will never forget the particularly emotional tour we took focusing on slavery at Monticello. Our fellow tourists were a mix of all ages and backgrounds. At one point, a nine-year-old African American boy, wearing wire-rim spectacles much like Jefferson’s, asked what life would have been like for him if he had been a slave at Monticello. Our tour guide, Tom Nash, did not shy away from the question and his powerful explanation about the injustice of slavery prompted a white boy around the same age to ask how a man like Jefferson could have written all men are created equal while continuing to own slaves. It was a poignant moment for many reasons, not least of which was the clear demonstration that hundreds of years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, citizens of all ages and from across the country still gather on Jefferson’s mountaintop to wrestle with the painful contradictions of our nation’s founding.
Reading Group Guide
1.If Thomas Jefferson’s wife hadn’t died, how might he and his daughter have lived different lives? Historically, Jefferson is said to have made a deathbed promise to his wife, and in the novel his daughter makes one as well. How might their lives have differed if they hadn’t made those deathbed promises?
2.As portrayed in the novel and in their letters to each other, how would you describe Jefferson and Patsy’s relationship with each other? Was Jefferson a good father? Did he change as a father over the course of the novel? Was Patsy a good daughter?
3.Does seeing Jefferson through his
daughter’s eyes make him more relatable as a Founding Father? How so or why not?
4.The limited choices women had available to them in the Revolutionary era is one theme explored in this book. What were the most important choices Patsy made throughout her life? Do you agree with why she made them? Could or should she have chosen differently?
5.What did you think of Sally’s choice to return to Virginia with Jefferson? Why did she make that decision? What were her alternatives and how viable were they?
6.Another theme explored in this book is sacrifice. What does Patsy sacrifice in her effort to protect her father? What did Jefferson sacrifice? What did Sally sacrifice? What did William Short sacrifice?
7.Why does Patsy think her father needs to be protected? Why does she think she is the only one to do it? In what ways does she protect him? What do you think of Patsy’s effort to protect Jefferson? Would you have done the same thing?
8.How are Patsy’s views on slavery portrayed in this novel? What factors influence her thinking? How do her views differ from her father’s or from William Short’s?
9.Why did Patsy decide to marry Thomas Mann Randolph Jr.? How would you describe their relationship and how did their relationship change over time?
10.Why can’t or won’t Patsy cry? Why does she finally cry in the final scene at Monticello?
11.Do you agree with William that Monticello was “a set of chains”? Why not or how so? Were you on William’s or Patsy’s side during their fight in the final scene at Monticello?
America's First Daughter: A Novel Page 59