Fred and Edie - Couverture rigide

''It is a triumphantly good novel, a feat of sustained and heart-breaking negative capability that impressively presents 'Edie' in the very light in which she saw herself...Her adoration of Freddy; her torment when her letters are read in public; her blackout shock at the death sentence - all such feelings are beautifully rendered' Lynne Truss, Sunday Times

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, expecially 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)

'Powerful ... Throws a harsh light not so much on Edith as on the society that judged her ... This excellent novel makes us realise that, whether Edith Thompson was guilty or not, she was tried - and condemned - as much for adultery as murder' Andrew Taylor, Independent

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)

'In a novel which merges fact and fiction, Jill Dawson takes us back to 1920s Ilford, and creates a heartrending voice for Edie by drawing on newspaper reports and her real love letters to Fred' Alex O'Connell The Times

Gripping...Dawson has got brilliantly under the skin of her main character. Her polished prose is consistently stylish and her descriptions of the sexual act, from a woman's viewpoint, are both lyrical and sublime (Daily Mail)

'It is a triumphantly good novel, a feat of sustained and heart-breaking negative capability that impressively presents 'Edie' in the very light in which she saw herself...Her adoration of Freddy; her torment when her letters are read in public; her blackout shock at the death sentence - all such feelings are beautifully rendered (Lynne Truss, Sunday Times)

'Gripping...a wonderfully vivid picture of a lower middle-class woman trapped in a monotonous marriage, caught up in her own escapist fantasies...Dawson has got brilliantly under the skin of her main character. Her polished prose is consistently stylish and her descriptions of the sexual act, from a woman's viewpoint, are both lyrical and sublime' Val Hennessy, Daily Mail

'In Fred and Edie, poet and novelist Jill Dawson creates a fictional version of Edith Thompson's story, using lengthy imaginative passages interspersed with snippets from the actual court case and from newspaper reports of the time. Much of the narrative takes the form of imagined letters which Edith writes to Freddy as she awaits the jury's verdict in her cell in Holloway. These fictional letters are based on Edith's actual letters, which reveal an excitable and sentimental writer, not expecially well-educated but capable of producing fluent and dramatic prose. Dawson has remained remarkably true to the spirit and tone of those letters throughout this novel...a fascinating story' The Sunday Business Post

Powerful ... Throws a harsh light not so much on Edith as on the society that judged her ... This excellent novel makes us realise that, whether Edith Thompson was guilty or not, she was tried - and condemned - as much for adultery as murder (Andrew Taylor, Independent)

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.