Book or Program Description
Black and White and Read All Over: Privilege, Race, Power and Class Behind the Uniquely American Masks of the Jazz Age.
“America has always been a performance culture. The Rhinelander trial exposed how race, class, gender, and even truth itself were deformed publicly long before social media existed.”
Wealth is rarely content to remain wealth. It seeks power, respectability, permanence, and heirs willing to obey its rules.
In 1925, one of America’s great fortunes encountered a problem money could not easily solve.
When Leonard Rhinelander, heir to one of New York’s wealthiest families, secretly married Alice Jones, a working-class young woman from New Rochelle, the resulting scandal captivated the nation. What might have remained a private matter instead became a public spectacle in which race, class, privilege, power, and identity were argued over by lawyers, amplified by newspapers, and consumed by a fascinated public.
Drawing on his new novel, Black and White and Read All Over, William Kinsolving explores the extraordinary true story behind one of the most notorious trials of the Jazz Age. The courtroom became a stage. The newspapers became a chorus. Respectability, reputation, and social standing fought for survival while two young people found themselves caught in forces far larger than themselves.
Part hidden history, part literary conversation, and part examination of how wealth protects itself, this program explores questions that remain remarkably current. Who decides who belongs? What happens when private lives become public spectacle? And why does a nation devoted to reinvention remain so fascinated by the policing of identity?
A century later, the masks may have changed, but the questions have not.
Note: William Kinsolving does not charge a speaking fee for library appearances. He will be in Philadelphia on October 27, 2026, for a Lifelong Learning program, A Writer’s Life, and would welcome consideration for Free Library programming during that visit.
Author Biography
After graduating from Stanford, William Kinsolving began his professional life onstage—first at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, playing Richard II – then studying at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Returning to New York, he acted under-, off-, and on Broadway and performed or directed at Stratford (CT), Harvard, Dartmouth, Café La Mama, and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where he received the San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Actor of the Year award.
He wrote his first play backstage, earning a Ford Foundation Playwriting Grant and a production by the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival. That success led to decades of work as a screenwriter and script doctor for every major film studio in Los Angeles, London, and Rome—ultimately contributing to more than fifty films.
Kinsolving later turned to fiction, publishing five novels, including a New York Times bestseller and multiple Literary Guild Main Selections. When traditional publishing contracted, he returned to playwriting, with new work presented in theatres across the country. His musical That Week with the Bachs premiered in 2023 at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral.
Compelled by the tectonic shifts in America today, Kinsolving returned to another time in American history when its social and cultural foundations were rumbling: The Nineteen-Twenties, and a love story that led to a trial that perforated the facades of privilege, sex, race and wealth: Black and White and Read All Over.
Links to relevant publicity materials and press coverage
William Kinsolving – Official Website
Black and White and Read All Over Amazon Page
Kirkus Reviews – Black and White and Read All Over (GET IT Recommended Read)
Lakeville Bookstore Reading & Discussion(video)
NYC Reading & Discussion(video)
Three most recently published titles
Black and White and Read All Over, Pragmatic Press May 1, 2026
Mister Christian, Simon & Schuster, June 12, 2012
The Diplomat’s Daughter, Nan A. Talese, May 1, 1993
Three recent appearances
NYC Book Reading and Discussion, New York City (2026)
Lakeville Books / Community Reading and Q&A, Lakeville, Connecticut (2026)
A Writer’s Life – Lifelong Learning Program, October 2026 (scheduled)
For review requests, media inquiries, speaking engagements, or general correspondence, please direct all inquiries to:
william@williamkinsolving.com