Fred & Edie

by Jill Dawson

Book Overview

In a dazzling act of literary license, the novelist and poet Jill Dawson has transformed the sensational true story of Britain's infamous condemned adulteress into a dramatic novel of passion, murder, and scandal, as seductive as it is shocking. One night in London in 1922, a clerk named Percy Thompson is stabbed to death as he walks home from the theater. The spectacular case that follows captures the imagination of an entire nation, as Percy's wife,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618197281
• ISBN13: 9780618197286
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 5.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A great true, historical novel?

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.

Mesmerizing

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.

Victim or sinner?

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.