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.
| ISBN: | 9780008329723 |
| Publication date: | 4th April 2019 |
| Author: | Alexander Masters |
| Publisher: | Fourth Estate Ltd an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 304 pages |
| Series: | 4th Estate Matchbook Classics |
| Genres: |
Biography: general True stories: general Memoirs Social and cultural history Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers |