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An Anatomy of the Master of Suspense
by Edward White
A fresh, innovative biography of the twentieth century's most iconic filmmaker.
In The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock, Edward White explores the Hitchcock phenomenon―what defines it, how it was invented, what it reveals about the man at its core, and how its legacy continues to shape our cultural world.
The book's twelve chapters illuminate different aspects of Hitchcock's life and work: "The Boy Who Couldn't Grow Up"; "The Murderer"; "The Auteur"; "The Womanizer"; "The Fat Man"; "The Dandy"; "The Family Man"; "The Voyeur"; "The Entertainer"; "The Pioneer"; "The Londoner"; "The Man of God." Each of these angles reveals something fundamental about the man he was and the mythological creature he has become, presenting not just the life Hitchcock lived but also the various versions of himself that he projected, and those projected on his behalf.
From Hitchcock's early work in England to his most celebrated films, White astutely analyzes Hitchcock's oeuvre and provides new interpretations. He also delves into Hitchcock's ideas about gender; his complicated relationships with "his women"―not only Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren but also his female audiences―as well as leading men such as Cary Grant, and writes movingly of Hitchcock's devotion to his wife and lifelong companion, Alma, who made vital contributions to numerous classic Hitchcock films, and burnished his mythology. And White is trenchant in his assessment of the Hitchcock persona, so carefully created that Hitchcock became not only a figurehead for his own industry but nothing less than a cultural icon.
Ultimately, White's portrayal illuminates a vital truth: Hitchcock was more than a Hollywood titan; he was the definitive modern artist, and his significance reaches far beyond the confines of cinema.
Edgar Awards, 2022
"A provocative new way of thinking about biography....The radial structure vibrates, like Hitchcock's best films, with intuition and mystery."
― Parul Sehgal, New York Times
"The great strength of The Twelve Lives is that a reader comes away from it with a vivid sense of how Hitchcock ignited screen masterpieces with the fires of his inner discord and contradictions."
― Alexander Kafka, Washington Post
"Full of such sharp observations, offering a Hitchcock whose art endures alongside―and in some ways depends upon―his insecurities and mistakes."
― Farran Smith Nehme, Wall Street Journal
"White's book is a perceptive, plainspoken, and vigorous portrait of an exceedingly strange, complicated, and perhaps deeply wounded man."
― John Banville, The New Republic
"Thoughtful and nuanced....Grasps Hitchcock's enduring hold on our aspirations and our fears."
― Glenn Frankel, Washington Post
"[An] innovative biography of Alfred Hitchcock.... Tracking Hitchcock's contemporary influence, White is an enterprising tour guide."
― Peter Conrad, The Observer
This information about The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Edward White is the author of The Tastemaker: Carl Van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America and has written for publications including the Paris Review. He lives in England.
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