Stuart: A Life Backwards

Stuart does not like the manuscript. Hes after a bestseller, like what Tom Clancy writes. But you are not an assassin trying to frazzle the president with anthrax bombs, I point out. You are an ex-homeless, ex-junkie psychopath, I do not add. This is the story of 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 homeless, knife-wielding thief. Told backwards Stuarts idea it starts with a deeply troubled thirty-two-year-old and ends with a happy-go-lucky little boy of twelve. This brilliant biography, winner of the Guardian First Book Award, presents a humbling portrait of homeless life, and is as extraordinary and unexpected as the man it describes.