The Girl from Leam Lane: The Life and Writing of Catherine Cookson

by Piers Dudgeon

Born to an impoverished young Tyneside woman in 1906, Catherine Cookson lived a life marked by cruelty and neglect. At the age of 27, she was able to buy a house of her own—a hopeful sign that the escape from her past was complete. In fact, her struggle had barely begun. Following the loss of four babies, a nervous breakdown, and confinement in a psychiatric hospital, she was brought to the brink of suicide and forced to confront the tragedies of her life. The author has known Catherine Cookson for many years and was given full cooperation on this biography by the novelist and her husband Tom, who provided many of the photographs for the book. Originally published in 1997, it tells the story of her long and eventful life through the heroines in her books.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[The Devine Ms Em · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dissection rather than an enjoyable story of the life of Catherine Cookson

[Kelly Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Mum introduced me to the world of Catherine Cookson when I was a teenager, and I felt the need to dip back into that world this week.
This book explores the author's life, which can make for an emotional read, especially if you are a fan and familiar with Catherine Cookson.

[Viktorija · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent most of my teens insatiably devouring anything by Catherine Cookson that I managed to lay my hands on. There was a certain something I felt, some inexplicable force at work that irresistibly drew me towards these stories and rendered them apart from everything else I'd ever read. This book had the effect of a jigsaw puzzle finally falling into place, answering all my questions and unveiling the mystery, larger than life, of Mrs. Cookson's poetics.
Drawing parallels between her own existence as a person and an artist, and that of big literary names such as Dickens and D.H. Lawrence, and, as she herself put it, "transposing her character into the characters in her books" beautifully in order to illuminate points of particular interest, this book simply joins the dots in a wonderful way, and paints a marvellous picture of the metamorphosis of the Girl from Leam Lane into a name lovingly issued from the lips of thousands of thankful fans.
Complete with stunning photographs of "wor Kate" throughout the years, this biography brings the magnetic, radiant person that she was to life as convincingly as she does her own characters.

[Lea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although the start of the book about Catherine’s early years was interesting, the writer focuses mainly on adding summaries of her novels throughout telling her story. I would have preferred to read more about Catherine’s actual life, rather than the blurbs of books. It has motivated me to read her autobiographies though. The author clearly admires Catherine, and so I find it quite surprising that I came away from this book quite disliking Catherine, something which I thought wouldn’t be the case as I find her authorship inspiring.

[Helen Geng]

Read October 2020

A bit of a slog; & I wasn’t convinced by the author’s argument about Cookson’s motivation.
Mostly, I read this to mine for more insanely readable Cookson page-turner titles & to learn more about Mrs. Cookson’s life & history.

[Gillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting social history but hard going if you haven't read her books - which I haven't! I read it for the social history aspect.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this less engaging than Cookson's autobiographies. Dudgeon actually interviewed the author, who also recorded information for him to use. There is interesting information here, but he repeats much of what Cookson wrote before. He mixed that with scenarios from her novels to explain her life.