Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis, Hardcover

Awards🏆
Finalist (2014) - Cybils - (Nonfiction-Young Adult)
Gold Medal Winner (2015) - Independent Publisher Book Awards - (Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction)

Contributor(s):

• Author: Alexis Coe

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 fiance 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-fiance'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+ Freda Forever recounts this tragic, real-life love story with over 100 illustrated love letters, maps, artifacts, historical documents, newspaper articles, courtroom proceedings, and intimate, domestic scenes - painting a vivid picture of a sadly familiar world.
 
Review citations

• Publishers Weekly - 08/04/2014
• School Library Journal / Best Of The Best/Highly Recommended - pg. 166 - 09/01/2014
• School Library Journal / Exceptional Presentation - pg. 166 - 09/01/2014
• School Library Journal / Book Of Special Distinction - pg. 166 - 09/01/2014
• School Library Journal / Top 15 Book Of The Year - pg. 166 - 09/01/2014
• School Library Journal / Highly Recommended - pg. 166 - 09/01/2014
• Kirkus Reviews - 09/15/2014
• Booklist - pg. 44 - 10/01/2014
• Library Journal - pg. 102 - 11/15/2014