Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis

by Alexis Coe, Sally Klann (Illustrator)

Overview

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.

Alice + Freda Forever recounts this tragic, real-life love story with over 100 illustrated love letters, maps, artifacts, historical documents, newspaper articles, courtroom proceedings, and intimate, domestic scenes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781936976607
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/2014
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	325,998
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	14 - 15 Years

About the Author

Alexis Coe is a historian and New York Times Bestselling Author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George of Washington and Alice+Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis (soon to be a major motion picture). She was a producer on the History Channel's "Washington" series, and has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times' opinion section, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, Elle, and many others. She is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Sally Klann is a painter and paper artist in Ocean Beach, San Diego, California. She grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut, and graduated with a BA in art from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where she concentrated on acrylic painting and book arts. You can view her work at www.sallyklann.com.

Editorial Reviews

08/04/2014
Coe, a columnist for The Awl, sheds light on one of the most lurid murder trials of the late-19th century, in this lively, provocative history. Prior to January of 1892, Alice Mitchell had planned on wedding her 17-year-old lover, Freda Ward. The two teenagers devised a plan in which Alice would try to pass as a man. But when their love letters were uncovered and the two were separated, a heartbroken Alice brutally murdered her ex-fiancée. As the details of their relationship were revealed during the subsequent media frenzy and trial, the American public struggled to comprehend the then-unspoken-of concept of same-sex love. But as Coe shows, the affair between Alice and Freda started as a socially-acceptable bond between two women, before deepening into something far more profound, bordering on outright insanity (known then as eratomania). Gender politics and societal expectations brought undue pressure on the romance, and Alice's fate (institutionalized, dying soon after from consumption) is somehow mysterious. It's an odd, even unsettling look at cultural attitudes of the 1890s. Coe argues that Alice acted not as a frustrated lesbian, but as a dangerous person just waiting for the right trigger. The author addresses the many cultural issues entangled in the controversy, providing impressively compact, albeit not expansive, coverage of the event. It's a well-written effort that makes the most of its source material on two levels, both as true crime and as social commentary. Illus. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"[A] captivating account, and readers will quickly become absorbed in the suspense surrounding Freda's murder."—starred, School Library Journal

From the Publisher

11/15/2014
In 1892, 19-year-old Alice Mitchell publicly killed her lover Freda Ward by the Memphis, TN, docks. Coe's narrative explores the tumultuous affair between the two volatile young women, from their budding school romance, through multiple threats, reconciliations, and instances of emotional manipulation, all the way to Freda's violent death. Immediately confessing to her crime of passion, Alice became the center of a media circus the likes of which the town had never seen—love (and murder) between women was unheard of at the time, particularly between white Southern women from respectable families. Utilizing numerous illustrated reproductions, Coe addresses the sexism and racism that informed court proceedings, as well as the context and effect of the Mitchell case in the wider sphere of gender politics and female "deviant" sexuality. The reproductions of letters in Freda's and Alice's writing, while lending a personal component to the analysis, can be tedious to decipher, and the images, though skillfully rendered, don't do much to enhance what is already a provocative account of Alice and Freda's case (though their macabre nature might appeal to younger readers). VERDICT Highly recommended as an insightful exploration of an important historical true crime and a solid introduction to narrative nonfiction.—Ashleigh Williams, School Library Journal

Library Journal

★ 09/01/2014
Gr 9 Up—The year was 1892, and 19-year-old Alice Mitchell was in love with Freda Ward, 17. She determined that if she couldn't marry Freda, nobody else would, either. The two women devised a plan to marry, with Alice posing as a man. However, their scheme was uncovered, and their families forbade the relationship. Freda moved on with her life and discovered other loves. Alice was unable to accept life without Freda and decided to kill her former lover when she visited Memphis. This true-crime drama uses primary-source documents of letters and transcripts from the trial to provide a rich, detailed description of Alice's successful murder plot and the events following the verdict that declared Alice insane and sentenced her to an asylum. This is a captivating account, and readers will quickly become absorbed in the suspense surrounding Freda's murder. Additionally, the book provides a foundation for discussion of sociocultural themes, such as how LGBT relationships have historically been viewed by society, gender and femininity, and even journalism.—April Sanders, Spring Hill College, Mobile, AL

School Library Journal

2014-08-27
The story of a Gilded Age-era homicide that stunned a nation with its sheer violence and tabooed origins. Haunted for years about the case, media columnist and historian Coe chronicles a 19th-century, Memphis, Tennessee-based ordeal of coldblooded murder and the jilted lesbian love that inspired it. As teenagers who fell in love in 1892, Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward threw caution to the wind, exchanged rings and anticipated marital bliss. Coe recounts their illicit affair through love letters, graphic artwork and entrancing detail as Alice, the more enamored partner when compared to the flirtatious, fickle Freda, became enraged when she learned of her fiancee's heterosexual infidelities. After a failed poisoning and an attempt to dress as a man to legally consummate their nuptials, their missives were intercepted and the relationship exposed. Forbidden from contact, the women drifted apart, yet Alice, angered and despondent, watched and waited for the perfect opportunity to approach Freda and slash her throat in public. Being the Victorian era, this type of savage crime of passion provoked sensationalistic front-page "creative reporting," especially as same-sex attraction was just beginning to be recognized as psychologically sound and not classified as perverse "erotomania." An insanity plea fueled a frenzied courtroom staffed by an all-white, male jury and a lunacy inquisition, which sentenced Alice to be institutionalized. In revisiting such a fascinating and nearly forgotten true-crime event, Coe argues that the societal, gender and cultural restraints of the era limited the options and civic compassion that could've been visited upon Alice, a woman the author presents as both a psychotic murderer and a scorned lesbian—yet it remains a mystery which personality trait took such drastic vengeance on that fateful day. A historically resonant reminder of how far societal tolerance has come and that it still remains a work in progress.

Kirkus Reviews