Fourth Estate

Stuart: A Life Backwards Matchbook Classics - Alexander Masters

The winner of the Guardian First Book Award that reinvented the biographic form. One of the ten books - novels, memoirs and one very unusual biography - that make up our Matchbook Classics' series, a stunningly redesigned collection of some of the best loved titles on our backlist. Stuart: A Life Backwards expanded the possibilities of what a biography could be: the stories it could tell, and how it could tell them. It is about a remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer (`a middle-class scum ponce, if you want to be honest about it, Alexander'), and Stuart Shorter, a thief, hostage-taker, psycho and street raconteur. Told backwards - Stuart's idea - it starts with a deeply troubled thirty-two-year-old stepping out in front of the 11.15 train from London to King's Lynn, and ends with a `happy-go-lucky little boy' of twelve. Compelling, humane and funny, it is as extraordinary and unexpected as the life it describes.

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