In December 1922 Edith Thompson, a smart, bright, lower-middle class woman who worked in a milliner's shop, was tried for conspiring with her young lover Frederick Bywaters to murder her husband, Percy. The sensational trial, which took place in front of heaving crowds at the Old Bailey, unravelled a real life drama as exciting as any blockbuster: an illicit love affair, a back-street abortion, domestic violence, murder and a double execution. FRED AND EDIE draws together powerful threads between personal memory and public lives, between innocence and responsibility, and between fact and fiction. It is an exploration of a woman caught in the net of her own private fantasy and the conflicts of the era in which she lived, of her muddled attempt to defy convention and reshape her own destiny, and, finally, of the devastation she left in her wake.
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'It will captivate readers ... The real triumph of the novel is to make the fictionalised truth sound utterly convincing - a case of fiction not so much stranger as stronger than fact. Edie is so wonderful, so bitterly honest about herself, especially her understanding of her own sensual nature. And the sex is beautifully written about. Jill Dawson magnificently gets into the woman's skin and makes the whole act sublime' (Margaret Forster )
'Jill Dawson's deft ability to map the territory of the heart, as well as the head, lends grace and conviction to this fictionalised version of a true story. FRED AND EDIE is a captivating account of a strangely impassioned, and compelling, love affair' (Caryl Phillips )
'Compelling reading' ( The Times )
'Gripping ... an engrossing, passionate and tragic story' ( Daily Mail )
'A haunting exploration of female desire and the tragic consequences when it finds itself repressed and thwarted.' ( Sunday Times )
'A moving testimony to the desperation of unrequited love' ( The Times )
'Jill Dawson's deft ability to map the territory of the heart, as well as the head, lends grace and conviction to this fictionalised version of a true story. FRED AND EDIE is a captivating account of a strangely impassioned, and compelling, love affair' (Caryl Phillips )
'Compelling reading' ( The Times )
'Gripping ... an engrossing, passionate and tragic story' ( Daily Mail )
'A haunting exploration of female desire and the tragic consequences when it finds itself repressed and thwarted.' ( Sunday Times )
'A moving testimony to the desperation of unrequited love' ( The Times )
Daily Mail
`Gripping ... an engrossing, passionate and tragic story'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Follows the trial of Edith Thompson and Fred Bywaters, both accused of the murder of Thompson's husband. Dawson writes Thompson so beautifully, giving her every sense of emotion that a woman in love has. Using excerts from Edie's own letters to Fred, it makes for compelling reading. There is passion in her writing and the description of Fred and Edies sexual encounters sizzle from the page with passion, yet reel you into the emotion and love that they had for each other. As a reader you are gripped right up until the end when your heart sinks as you turn the last pages and feel the pain and sadness that Edie went through having been a victim of the British Justice system and indeed of her time. Dawson does an exellent job in making you relate to Edie's desperation and foolishness. Her story will stay with you for some time. A recommended novel for anyone wishing to be gripped once more by literature.
By JessMossman
Format:Paperback
This for me got off to a slow start but the sense of claustrophobia and Edie's voice was well established from the beginning. I wasn't sure how interested I was going to be in the situation but by about half way through I was hooked in and felt real empathy for Edie. I liked the mixture of narrative devices and by the end felt there was huge poignancy and also a real sense of suspense created. The book certainly raises interesting issues about women's lives at that time.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.1 out of 5 stars
8 reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Victim or sinner?
10 Nov 2001
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Fred and Edie is based on the real life murder case of Frederick Bywaters and Edith Thompson who were hanged for the murder of Edie's husband Percy in 1920's England. Jill Dawson deftly blends factual material such as newspaper articles with fictional material in order to not only tell the tale of the lovers themselves, but to give the reader an insight into the lives of women during that era. How many women, like Edie, we wonder, married for stability and social conventions in order to find themselves trapped in loveless, violent marriages? Escape, appears to come for Edie in the shape of her sister's young boyfriend, Fred, with whom she has a passionate love affair. However, Percy refuses to grant her a divorce,a refusal that ultimately leads to the tragic deaths of all three of them.
Branded "silly and vain" at the start of the novel, we see Edie achieving emotional maturity and insight through a series of letters she writes to Fred from her prison cell. Issues of her culpability, sexuality and the role of women in this pre-feminist society are gradually revealed to us, leaving us wondering if she was a cold calculating killer or the victim of a society that denied her justice.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great true, historical novel�
4 Oct 2003
By Dianna Johnston
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
I really enjoyed reading this true crime novel by Jill Dawson. I'm not normally into true crime, but this one was written so much like a novel that you almost forget that it isn't fiction. Plus the historical London setting always puts a nice, atmospheric spin on everything. I highly recommend this book.
Fred & Edie tells the true story of a man, Percy Thompson, who is killed after walking home from the theatre with his wife, Edie. Shortly thereafter, Edie and her lover, Fred Bywaters, are arrested for his murder. Most of the novel is made up of letters from Edie to Fred, written from her jail cell during the trial. However, the flashbacks of how Edie met Fred, as well as her tumultuous marriage to Percy, are what make this novel more than just a newspaper headline.
For fans of historical fiction, true crime, stories about scandalous affairs, and lovers of all things British - this novel is for you! It took a bit to get used to the letters/newsclipping writing style, but once it got rolling, I didn't want to put it down. I can't wait for what's next from a new favorite author, Jill Dawson.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mesmerizing
25 Dec 2001
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
An artfully-written novel of what a British reviewer called a modern Madame Bovary, "Fred & Edie" is a compelling look at a crime that captivated England in the 1920s. As much a portrait of a changing era as a crime story, it is less about love than about dreams of love versus the harsh reality of a cruel, boorish husband. While at first Edith Thompson seems the "vain, silly" woman others thought her, the author beautifully develops and shows us her depth and longing until we are both transported and moved by her plight. Many images will linger long after the reader is finished.
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4.1 out of 5 stars
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