William Kinsolving
Novelist • Playwright • Screenwriter
A secret marriage. A national scandal. One forgotten trial that still speaks to America today. Based on the infamous 1925 Rhinelander Trial, Black and White and Read All Over uncovers the extraordinary true story behind one of America’s most sensational courtroom dramas—a story whose questions of race, class, identity, and media remain strikingly relevant today.
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BREAKING NEWS “Kinsolving presents a historical novel based on what newspapers of the 1920s termed the ‘Rhinelander Affair’… An engaging account with historical heft and contemporary relevance.”
—Kirkus Reviews — GET IT ✅ Recommendation
a novel by
William Kinsolving
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: In 1925, a perfect love story became a national scandal fueled by the extremes of daily tabloid speculation. When Leonard Rhinelander, heir to one of New York’s most powerful families, married Alice Jones, a working-class woman whose racial identity would later become the centerpiece of a courtroom shock, their union ignited one of the most notorious trials of the twentieth century. Under pressure from his family, Leonard sought an annulment, and Alice was forced to defend not only her marriage, but her very existence, before a jury and a nation all too eager to judge.
Black and White and Read All Over revisits the Rhinelander case as it was lived, not merely reported, including family scandals revealed that had been overlooked at the time — exposing the machinery of privilege and the human cost of becoming a headline.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Most of the story you’re about to read is a pure romance, its struggles, its perseverance against impossible odds, and its joyful triumph – though brief.
This is a work of historical fiction based on actual events. While the narrative and certain details have been imagined, the social attitudes and legal practices depicted reflect the period in which the story unfolded. It includes language and descriptions that may be considered offensive by today’s standards a century later, particularly in its portrayal of gender, race, and class, as well as in the invasive scrutiny of a woman’s private life. These factors are presented as part of the historical record and are essential to understanding the forces at work in the trial that concludes the book.
The novel does not endorse the prejudices it portrays. It seeks to examine one extreme example of the human cost of a society that so adroitly could turn private lives into public spectacle.
This story has been told in magazine articles, scholarly books, novels, and endlessly in the newspapers a century ago, mostly for the sensation of it. Well, it was sensational, and scandalous, shocking in its legal conclusion, revelatory of the nation’s insidious flaw – racism – despite the decades-old Constitutional Amendments intended to purge it.
After following up on the footnote from Nella Larsen’s novel Passing, that referenced the Rhinelander trial in 1925, I found that the research revealed extraordinary and unique personal disclosures, struggles, and finally family revelations that previously had not been fully considered.
The temptation was strong to write the story as non-fictional history. I overcame it. The fiction – the story – begins here.