That moment in 2012 when I began writing my historical fiction novels about Isaac Granger Jefferson, I knew I was taking a risk.
Isaac was black and I am white. His ancestors came from Africa. My ancestors came from Europe. He was born a slave and owned by Thomas Jefferson. I was born free and have never been owned by anyone, of course. He was illiterate. I have a post-graduate degree. He was born in about 1775, eighty-four years before the Civil War began; I was born in 1949, eighty-four years after the Civil War ended. I could go on.
Why then, with all these differences, did I still take the risk of writing his story? To answer, I must jump all the way back to 2004, when I received an invitation from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia to submit a proposal for a sculpture of Thomas Jefferson. Plunging into a study of Jefferson’s life and times, I finally decided that I would have to incorporate slavery into my proposal. But how? Then I discovered Isaac’s story, which he had dictated to a white man named Charles Campbell in the late 1840’s, and a daguerreotype from the same period, when he was an old man living as a “Free Black” in Petersburg, Virginia. Almost immediately I set about sculpting a portrait bust of Isaac Granger to go along with a portrait bust of Thomas Jefferson. Yes!
My final proposal for the Jefferson sculpture was not accepted—and I moved on to other things. But I could not forget Isaac’s story, one part of it in particular: in 1790, at about age fifteen, he traveled with “Old Master” (Thomas Jefferson) up to Philadelphia, where he was apprenticed to a tinsmith (“one Bringhouse”) who was probably a Quaker, where he remained for four years.
Think about that. At an impressionable age, Isaac is suddenly off the plantation, away from his family, living (most likely) in the tinsmith’s house with three other apprentices (all of them white), and moving about through a city which was at the time the capital of the country and home to a thriving African-American community. Those four years in Philadelphia must have been a mind-bending experience for Isaac. But would he have shared his thoughts and feelings about this experience to a white man, in the South, in the 1840’s? A white man who planned to publish Isaac’s recollections in a book? Not a chance!
That is why I took the risk to write Isaac Granger’s story: to give him a voice. To let him speak his mind to us, if he dared not do it then. To build, from what few facts he provided, a rich account of his experiences. To broadly imagine his life as it truly was: “the hero’s journey.” As Frederick Douglass said, “it is not too late to retrieve the past.”
I hope that Isaac’s story, as told in A Partial Sun, That Dazzling Sun, and when it is completed, A Slow Eclipse will be a memorable experience for you. I hope these books expand your understanding, awaken your empathy, provoke you at times to laughter or to tears. Certainly, the writing of Isaac’s story in these books has been a transformative experience for me.
I welcome your comments and conversation. Feel free to email me.
Isaac was black and I am white. His ancestors came from Africa. My ancestors came from Europe. He was born a slave and owned by Thomas Jefferson. I was born free and have never been owned by anyone, of course. He was illiterate. I have a post-graduate degree. He was born in about 1775, eighty-four years before the Civil War began; I was born in 1949, eighty-four years after the Civil War ended. I could go on.
Why then, with all these differences, did I still take the risk of writing his story? To answer, I must jump all the way back to 2004, when I received an invitation from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia to submit a proposal for a sculpture of Thomas Jefferson. Plunging into a study of Jefferson’s life and times, I finally decided that I would have to incorporate slavery into my proposal. But how? Then I discovered Isaac’s story, which he had dictated to a white man named Charles Campbell in the late 1840’s, and a daguerreotype from the same period, when he was an old man living as a “Free Black” in Petersburg, Virginia. Almost immediately I set about sculpting a portrait bust of Isaac Granger to go along with a portrait bust of Thomas Jefferson. Yes!
My final proposal for the Jefferson sculpture was not accepted—and I moved on to other things. But I could not forget Isaac’s story, one part of it in particular: in 1790, at about age fifteen, he traveled with “Old Master” (Thomas Jefferson) up to Philadelphia, where he was apprenticed to a tinsmith (“one Bringhouse”) who was probably a Quaker, where he remained for four years.
Think about that. At an impressionable age, Isaac is suddenly off the plantation, away from his family, living (most likely) in the tinsmith’s house with three other apprentices (all of them white), and moving about through a city which was at the time the capital of the country and home to a thriving African-American community. Those four years in Philadelphia must have been a mind-bending experience for Isaac. But would he have shared his thoughts and feelings about this experience to a white man, in the South, in the 1840’s? A white man who planned to publish Isaac’s recollections in a book? Not a chance!
That is why I took the risk to write Isaac Granger’s story: to give him a voice. To let him speak his mind to us, if he dared not do it then. To build, from what few facts he provided, a rich account of his experiences. To broadly imagine his life as it truly was: “the hero’s journey.” As Frederick Douglass said, “it is not too late to retrieve the past.”
I hope that Isaac’s story, as told in A Partial Sun, That Dazzling Sun, and when it is completed, A Slow Eclipse will be a memorable experience for you. I hope these books expand your understanding, awaken your empathy, provoke you at times to laughter or to tears. Certainly, the writing of Isaac’s story in these books has been a transformative experience for me.
I welcome your comments and conversation. Feel free to email me.
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