Loved the first story; enjoyed the second one; never finished the third.

Fascinating, three individuals I had never heard of, but had an impact in their times.

This is a very good book indeed, which gets better as it goes along.

The first biography, of artist Christopher Wood, is good. The second, of Battle of Britain ace Richard Hillary, is very good, and the third - journalist, spy, and flawed genius Jeremy Wolfenden - is excellent.

Recommended.

i found these two biographies that i read to be a faithful and fair glimpse into two very remarkable men of the early period of the last century.

This author rarely disappoints, he has a clean, regular style and puts his own spin on the stories he researches. I like this one for the interconnecting of three separate lives but with similar variables and outcomes.

Interesting but a bit dry.

I cannot say I thoroughly enjoyed this read as it has made me very disquieted & I had to read something else pretty quickly.
I agree with another reviewer that it reflects the society the men grew up in & the problems within it. I already knew something of Christopher Wood as I am a practising artist & have been familiar with a lot of his work since I was an undergraduate in the 1970s. I had heard something of Richard Hillary & his book but I was ignorant about Jeremy Wolfenden till I read this book. His story was the most distressing as he had such potential, but left, unlike the others, nothing behind & the nature of his fall & death was quite revolting, I found the post mortem reports quite gruesome.
I would recommend it to others to read though as it is a historical document & indicates some of the difficulties unconventional characters faced in the earlier 20thc.

Not sure about this one. I reached the end and thought “What was the point”? Did I miss it? Three young men who died in their youth, a painter, a war pilot, a spy/journalist/hedonist. Two were homosexual. All are now relatively unknown. I struggled to see further connections. Like I’ve thought before with Faulks, sometimes he writes with an urgency and style that makes the pages fly past, while at other times it’s all so turgid that you wonder how he could bear to sit and write it, never mind read it. Overall it was all so “slight” and, for me, lacked a certain depth. The characters were interesting but didn’t interest me, a bit like his writing.

Mid 3. Though at times intriguing as a collective biography of three young men who tragically had their lives cut short, the book failed to grip this reader. The middle biography about Richard Hillary, a Spitfire pilot during the Second World War, is the glowing exception. Nevertheless, a work of value as a reflection of young men facing the challenges and social expectations of their times.

Confession; I love everything that Sebastian Faulkes writes, whether a short story, newspaper article or one of his excellent works of fiction (Engleby being my favorite).

The Fatal Englishman is a fine work about three disparate Englishman that died at a young age. I connected more with the last two but was engaged throughout and thoroughly captivated by the Jeremy Wolfenden chapter. A great read with lots of detail and insight into the lives of three young, brilliant men sadly linked by their early death but also by a tortured soul.

The pace was alittle slow for me and the writing quite dry and dispassionate so not complementary to a biography where you would might expect some sympathy with the subject. I felt that these young men had had alot of advantages in their lives and even though similarities were highlighted such as an large emotional attachment to their mother and an emotionally distant father, it was, for children of the upper middle classes at that time, to be held at arms length by a father as it was considered character building and taught one independence so, considered to be a normal upbringing.

I didn’t think it was as amazing as I did when I read it in the 90s. I can see why I loved it though. Early 20th C glamour and tragedy. I just wished it was about women instead. Made me want to read Mitfords again.