Stuart, A Life Backwards

`Stuart does not like the manuscript. He's 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 - Stuart's 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.

Review:

`Unique and wonderful.' Daily Mail

`Possibly the best biography I have ever read.' Mark Haddon

`This is a very rare and haunting book ... A great first book.' Andrew O'Hagan

'Good books like this appear about once every five years. It's been years since I've been so delighted by a book and so surprised by it ... When I'd finished I felt bereft, as if I'd lost an old friend.' Zadie Smith

`Utterly compelling and very funny.' Daily Telegraph

`One of the most remarkable and touching biographies I've ever read.' Minette Marin, Sunday Times

'I feel so strongly about this strange, funny, sad book that I hardly know where to begin ... My enthusiasm feels almost limitless. A page-turner.' Observer

'Funny and original, a startling book ... By the end I was doubled up in tears, but throughout I was often doubled up with laughter. It is dazzling.' Vogue

'A remarkable biography. Unforgettably moving. A gripping read.' Tim Lott, Sunday Times

`A comedy of errors and horrors deftly handled and with a terrifically droll sense of humour.' Melanie McGrath, Evening Standard

'With his first book, Alexander Masters ... has achieved something remarkable. He has, without patronising, given a voice to the "underclass"; at the same time, without preaching, he shows us the value of even the most damaged of human lives ... a powerful book, humane, instructive and entirely original. Sunday Telegraph

Prizes: Winner of Hawthornden Prize 2006 and Guardian First Book Award 2005. Short-listed for British Book Awards: Biography of the Year 2006 and Whitbread Book Awards: Biography Category 2005 and Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2005.