Alice  Freda Forever, Alexis Coe
Alice  Freda Forever, Alexis Coe
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Alice + Freda Forever
A Murder in Memphis

Author: Alexis Coe

Narrator: Sophie Amoss, Alexis Coe

Unabridged: 4 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/21/2020


Synopsis

"Alice + Freda Forever is a gut-wrenching story of love, death, and the dangers of intolerance."--Bustle

In 1892, America was obsessed with a teenage murderess, but it wasn't her crime that shocked the nation--it was her motivation. Nineteen-year-old Alice Mitchell had planned to pass as a man in order to marry her seventeen-year-old fiancée Freda Ward, but when their love letters were discovered, they were forbidden from ever speaking again. Freda adjusted to this fate with an ease that stunned a heartbroken Alice. Her desperation grew with each unanswered letter--and her father's razor soon went missing. On January 25, Alice publicly slashed her ex-fiancée's throat. Her same-sex love was deemed insane by her father that very night, and medical experts agreed: This was a dangerous and incurable perversion. As the courtroom was expanded to accommodate national interest, Alice spent months in jail--including the night that three of her fellow prisoners were lynched (an event which captured the attention of journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells). After a jury of "the finest men in Memphis" declared Alice insane, she was remanded to an asylum, where she died under mysterious circumstances just a few years later.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Susanna on July 25, 2015

I'd give this book 3.5 stars if I could but went for 4 because Alexis Coe has done readers, especially feminist readers and anyone interested in women's studies, a service by recalling this case to our attention. Lizzie Borden (most probably) murdered her father and stepmother later the same year, 1......more

Goodreads review by Sarah on March 24, 2015

Dear author or publisher: Please, please fix the geographical errors in this book! Memphis is in West Tennessee NOT East Tennessee. Page 25: "In Memphis, 'chumming' was the regional term for intimate female relationships, but it was by no means particular to Eastern Tennessee." Page 68: "By eight o'c......more

Goodreads review by Meave on June 01, 2014

I've had the privilege of working with Alexis a little bit, and I met her in person once, so I'm of course biased. That said, this book is pretty fantastic. As an introduction to Alice and Freda's story, and as an overview of contemporary social mores, politics, racism, classism, and sexism, it's sol......more