Fred & Edie [Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Jill Dawson (Author), Patricia Gallimore (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2003

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.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dawson's third novel (after Tricks of the Light and Magpie) strikingly and elegantly blends fact and fiction in a reimagining of the events surrounding the spectacular 1922 London trial of Edith Thompson and her lover, Frederick Bywaters, who were convicted and hanged for murdering Edith's husband, Percy. Told primarily in letters Edie writes to her "darlint" Freddy while they are both imprisoned, the story offers a moving portrait of domestic tragedy and an understated but penetrating social commentary. Actual newspaper accounts and a few excerpts from the real Edith Thompson's letters are interspersed throughout; ironically, perhaps, they are less interesting less convincing, even than the fictional material Dawson attributes to Edie. Defiant, intelligent Edie finds solace in writing and in reliving her doomed but passionate affair with Freddy, a ship's steward seven years her junior who had been her sister's "paramour" first. Her language full of longing, rich with metaphor is stunning, and her increasing understanding of brutish Percy, callow Freddy, herself and human nature in general is almost redemptive. In a letter that Freddy never receives, she writes: "We had our happiness didn't we, the light might shine through it sometimes but it was green and fresh and unbending as a blade of grass, wasn't it, Freddy, while it lasted?" It is a testimony to Dawson's abilities that even though the novel must advance toward an inevitable conclusion, its story is gripping, surprising and beautiful. 5-city author tour, national advertising. (Sept.)Forecast: This title was a finalist for the Whitbread Prize; a film (Another Life) based on the same incidents premiered in the U.K. and is scheduled for U.S. release this year. Though set 80 years ago in England, the novel should draw a contemporary American audience given the controversy that continues to surround the issue of capital punishment.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

In 1922, Edith Thompson, a millinery clerk, and Frederick Bywaters, who worked in a ship's laundry, were arraigned in the Old Bailey for the stabbing death of Edie's loutish husband, Percy—he as the perpetrator and she as co-conspirator. The case was sensational, involving not only adultery and incriminating letters but also a double betrayal (Freddy was the boyfriend of Edie's sister Avis). Many believed that Edie was innocent, indicted on moral but not criminal grounds. Piecing together contemporary news accounts and the gist of Edie's notes to Freddy from Holloway Gaol, Dawson has fashioned an epistolary novel marked by an almost unfaltering grasp of period atmosphere—the trolley ride, the felt cloche—and a consummate knowledge of erotic obsession.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Recorded Books; Unabridged edition (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841972533
• ISBN-13: 978-1841972534
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,714,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jill Dawson is one of Britain's most talented contemporary writers. She began publishing at the age of 22 by winning first prize in a national short story competition. She went on to win an Eric Gregory Award for poetry, and published her first novel, Trick of the Light, in 1996. She is the author of six novels, editor of six anthologies of poetry and short stories, and has published one poetry pamphlet. Fred & Edie, her third novel, was shortlisted for both the Whitbread and Orange Prize, and was voted one of 50 essential novels by a living author by Guardian readers in the UK.
She has held many fellowships, including the British Council Fellowship in Amherst, and the Creative Writing Fellowship at University of East Anglia, Norwich, where she taught on the Writing MA.
In 2006 she received an honorary doctorate in recognition of her writing and her work with new writers.
Her latest novel, The Great Lover, was selected as a Summer Read for 2009 by TV's Richard and Judy Book Club.
Jill Dawson is currently director of Gold Dust, a mentoring scheme which pairs new writers with big-name established writers. www.gold-dust.org.uk
Her own website is here: www.jilldawson.co.uk

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Victim or sinner?, November 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Fred & Edie (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, October 3, 2003

By 

Dianna Johnston "Compulsive Reader" (Joplin, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fred & Edie: A Novel (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, December 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Fred & Edie (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.