The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock

"Edward White’s The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock is a pinata of literary pleasures. Learned and graceful, thoughtful and provocative, White cracks the Hitchcock code with deft analysis and fine writing. It’s a high-stepping performance full of humor and depth. Walking a tightrope between criticism and biography, White places both the man and his myth in the cultural landscape of his times. In the process, he returns us to the films with a much more informed eye. A book to keep and to return to." -- John Lahr, author of Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh
"A provocative new way of thinking about biography... The radial structure vibrates, like Hitchcock’s best films, with intuition and mystery." -- Parul Sehgal - The New York Times
"Perceptive and gracefully written, “The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock” is a bracing study of the master of suspense... It is a rare book that could pleasurably be twice as long." -- The Economist
"White combines his interpretive zest with sensitivity, clarity and knife-sharp phrasing, smartly dedicating each of his 12 chapters to a different facet of the director's personality: the voyeur, the entertainer, the womaniser, the family man… Anatomising someone of Hitchcock's stature risks an equally chaotic frenzy of stabs, but with these 12 scalpel strokes White cuts close to his subject's heart." -- Victoria Segal - The Sunday Times
""... innovative biography of Alfred Hitchcock... Tracking Hitchcock's contemporary influence, White is an enterprising tour guide... I was happy to be reminded of Cornelia Parker’s PsychoBarn, constructed in 2016 on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum in New York... And thanks to White, I went on an excursion to Leytonstone, Hitchcock’s birthplace in east London... I was also pleased to learn from White about the lewd Hitchcock tribute in Eminem’s Music to Be Murdered By." -- Peter Conrad - The Observer