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Good story. I found it gripping and wanted to know the outcome. A chilling story but a very plausible reason for why Hitchcock was as he was.
From Stephen Volk comes a new tale in novella format which engrosses from the first paragraph and one that is so wonderfully evocative of a bygone era of England. The attention to detail of Fred's domestic life and his dreams as a young lad is absolutely wonderful. The introduction of the fearful and (as it later transpires) depraved Policeman sends chills down my adult spine, Fred's ghastly misdeed with The Girl With Yellow Hair is disturbingly well captured as indeed is every aspect of this ex...
This is time’s vast leap for man, but I don’t want to reveal more contents of these closing pages in case I spoil them. I merely ask a question. What was fabricated from scratch and what was already there, as viewed through this book’s haunting squint-hole upon truth and fiction, shutting and opening, as it does, like the aperture of a lens? Leminscate or Leytonstone.“Soon it begins, and never ends.” The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to po...
'Find kindness in your life,' a priest tells the young Alfred Hitchcock, the centrepiece of this new novella from Stephen Volk. But having been incarcerated in a police cell overnight, for no apparent reason other than a whim of his father's, kindness certainly didn't come easy to the young 'Fred'. Rejected by his schoolmates, Hitchcock turned his attention to the young, blonde, Olga Butterworth and, whether by way of retribution for his own experience, or not (it's hard to be sure), incarcerate...
Nice insight into a story about the master of suspense storytelling. Stephen Volk has built upon actual events to tell his own fictional quirky tale that opens the door onto the dark world of a boy destined for greatness.
I came to this novella with high hopes. I’ve long been a fan of Alfred Hitchcock - from the books to which he lent his name, to the masterful films that have thrilled and scared me over the years - and Stephen Volk’s previous novella, “Whitstable” was one of my top reads of the year in 2012, a true five-star classic.“Leytonstone” revolves around an anecdote Hitchcock told many times, that when he was seven his father had him locked away in the police cells with the warning “This is what happens
I snapped up Leytonstone as soon as I could because I'd been so charmed by Volk's lovely, generous Whitstable (and, for that matter, his work on the subtle and moving ghost story film The Awakening). First Peter Cushing, now Alfred Hitchcock: I look forward to as many novellas about horror film luminaries as Volk wants to write.It isn't a retread, either: Leytonstone is, appropriately enough, chillier and more psychological than Whitstable. The novel's centerpiece, "Fred," is a masterpiece of ch...
In Whitstable, Stephen Volk channelled horror icon Peter Cushing’s agony after the death of his beloved wife with such poignancy and reality that it brought back to this reader every resounding feeling of grief that I’d ever experienced at the death of a loved one.In his new novella, Leytonstone, Volk channels Alfred Hitchcock’s anxieties as an 8 year old growing up in the east end of London in 1916. Alfred was an intelligent child with a seemingly indifferent father and an overbearing mother. T...
Fantastic novella dramatising an anecdote oft-told by Alfred Hitchcock about a childhood episode. A worthy follow-up/counterpoint to Volk's earlier novella Whitstable.
This is a great novella based on a specific incident in the young Alfred Hitchcock's life which subsequently forms the backbone for his demeanor, interests, films and philosophy. Fictionalised biography can come under criticism for not being accurate and it's true that factual accuracy is shelved here but that's not to the detriment of story. Volk doesn't put a foot wrong in tone, characterisation or prose. This is an engaging, compelling work which illuminates Hitchcock in the same way that Joy...
Evocative to start with, as we follow young “Fred” through his famous legal scrape, then it darkens into something quite different (thankfully fictional but with roots in reality). As we worry about the conclusion of this second act, a third, crueller development bites its way in. This is not hard history but it has enough plausibility, especially early on, and young Fred grips us as we follow his changing persona towards the master director, with issues, that he was to become.
