Stuart: A Life Backwards

Stuart: A Life Backwards
Alexander Masters

A major launch for the paperback edition of the most original, capitvating and award-winning memoir of the year.Stuart, A Life Backwards, is the story of a remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer and illustrator (‘a middle class scum ponce, if you want to be honest about it, Alexander) and a chaotic, knife-wielding beggar whom he gets to know during a campaign to release two charity workers from prison.Interwoven into this is Stuart’s confession: the story of his life, told backwards. With humour, compassion (and exasperation) Masters slowly works back through post-office heists, prison riots and the exact day Stuart discovered violence, to unfold the reasons why he changed from a happy-go-lucky little boy into a polydrug-addicted-alcoholic Jekyll and Hyde personality, with a fondness for what he called ‘little strips of silver’ (knives to you and me).Funny, despairing, brilliantly written and full of surprises: this is the most original and moving biography of recent years.

Stuart

A Life Backwards

Alexander Masters

Copyright (#ulink_b18ff8d6-27b6-50d7-ac4a-68cff7ec6058)

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thestate.co.uk (http://www.4thestate.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2005

Published in paperback by Harper Perennial in 2006

Copyright © Alexander Masters 2005

‘Obituary of Stuart Shorter’ copyright © Alexander Masters 2002

Alexander Masters asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Front cover photograph: Stuart Shorter as a child

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007200375

Ebook Edition © August 2011 ISBN: 9780007374144

Version: 2015-09-18

Dedication (#ulink_152556de-6061-5325-a36d-8994c99abebd)

For my father, Dexter Masters

Epigraph (#ulink_bf75ee31-9232-5607-9d4c-2c48b05cdd6e)

‘Alexander, sort it out – you’re the writer. I just done the living.’

Stuart Shorter

Contents

Cover (#ue54bb156-a985-5361-b709-d96f45c2b88e)

Title Page (#u36953795-30c1-5d9f-86ea-9e5b87f8e4ce)

Copyright (#u51bfb63c-710b-5417-bd86-27e19bed0054)

Dedication (#uea139726-7bf2-5225-b063-194c76ea65a6)

Epigraph (#ua4acd94f-7905-52f4-8e75-32a5a1f3bc7a)

Map (#u6bf34870-75e1-5903-9f95-7d1d1f055501)

Chapter 0 (#u2f2d4ae2-8504-59e9-9b83-786501eb2996)

Chapter 1 (#u094a7973-acea-55c2-9075-9f94375b1456)

Chapter 2 (#uc2396c6f-cae6-5bf5-9198-9b932350ab22)

Chapter 3 (#u738d8ba3-5889-5406-8088-b1722ed9864d)

Chapter 4 (#u78b34f09-1075-51a3-9b47-a752c894bd13)

Chapter 5 (#u4db38f3d-a83f-5ff2-95fd-92115c30f580)

Chapter 6 (#u9747ae18-88cf-5c31-89f5-b94a82b29eac)

Chapter 7 (#udabe5bd0-f320-5d81-81c0-e4c8ad4b5bf3)

Chapter 8 (#uce1d4215-9d9d-55cc-8729-6ee7a1238f6c)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)