In this extraordinary book, Alexander Masters has created a
moving portrait of a troubled man, an unlikely friendship, and a
desperate world few ever see. A gripping who-done-it journey back
in time, it begins with Masters meeting a drunken Stuart lying on a
sidewalk in Cambridge, England, and leads through layers of
hell…back through crimes and misdemeanors, prison and homelessness,
suicide attempts, violence, drugs, juvenile halls and special
schools–to expose the smiling, gregarious thirteen-year-old boy who
was Stuart before his long, sprawling, dangerous fall.
Shocking, inspiring, and hilarious by turns, Stuart: A Life
Backwards is a writer’s quest to give voice to a man who, beneath
his forbidding exterior, has a message for us all: that every
life–even the most chaotic and disreputable–is a story worthy of
being told.
From the Hardcover edition.