Chase-Riboud later wrote. “After lunch, sitting on the beach while boats filled with paparazzi circled the island with telephoto lenses that resembled bazookas, I told Jacqueline the story of Sally Hemings, my desire that the world know who she was, and my own frustration at perhaps not having the skills or the stamina. ‘I’m a poet, a sprinter—not a long-distance runner,’ I said, ‘and no one seems to be interested in the life of an American Revolution–era enslaved Black woman.’” Random House, including her editor there, the legendary Toni Morrison, had passed on the book.
