It is Paris, 1815. An extraordinarily shaped South African girl known as the Hottentot Venus, dressed only in feathers and beads, swings from a crystal chandelier in the duchess of Berry’s ballroom. Below her, the audience shouts insults and pornographic obscenities. Among these spectators is the Baron George Cuvier, whose encounter with her will inspire a theory of race that will change European science forever.

Thomas Jefferson had a mistress for 38 years whom he loved and lived with until he died—the beautiful and elusive Sally Hemings. In this moving novel, Barbara Chase-Riboud re-creates one of America’s most powerful love stories and gives us a poignant, tragic, and unforgettable meditation on the history of race and sex in America.