Comments on Scandal at Bizarre

In my opinion, Kierner does an excellent job of using the scandal at Bizarre to look at a wide variety of themes in Jefferson's America.   She seamlessly uses the scandal as a peephole to look at the broader theme of gender roles at the end of the eighteenth and start of the nineteenth century.  She also explores the power that slaves' gossip carried, and their agency in wielding this power in order to shame those "who they deemed lacking in paternal benevolence" (172).  It seems to me that Kierner is right to assert that the slaves' rumors were what got the ball rolling when it comes to the scandal getting out in the open, and which eventually ended up in court.  I wish that she could have devoted more time to exploring the power of slaves' rumors, since it's such an interesting topic.  I feel as though I learned a lot about the wider subject of gender roles in this time period by looking through this peephole, but I felt as though I learned only about the power of slaves' rumors as it pertained to this particular case.  Nonetheless, I was also impressed by the way she was able to incorporate specific quotations from the letters into her narrative.  While I felt that the authors of Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance, for example, at times relied a little too heavily on quoting long passages of the letters that they used, Kierner inserted appropriate pieces with helpful analysis throughout.  I think that she gets away with using "Scandal" in her title, since such a large portion is devoted to the aftermath rather than the scandal itself, but overall it's an excellent book.