Stuart: A Life Backwards - Alexander Masters

A labour of love by journalist & one-time homeless hostel-worker Alexander Masters, this is the life story of Stuart Shorter. When we meet him he is busy confounding the expectations of all the professionals by making a go of living in his new flat & weaning himself off heroin, having only recently been a long-term homeless, drug-addled, knife-obsessed alcoholic. Masters works back in time through the periods of Stuart's life, punctuated by violence & homelessness & jail, & the further we go back the more we learn about what caused him to become this chaotic, violent, unhappy grown man. Stuart is a colourful character & ...  Read the complete review

How many times do we pass by a homeless person in the street and just write them off as a waste of space? In this book the life story of one of these men, Stuart, is told by journalist and author Alexander Masters. As his story unfolds we learn how a young boys life and mind is slowly ruined by abuse at the hands of his brother and then in childrens homes and he spirals into an adulthood filled with violence, drink and drugs, mental illness, prisons and homelessness. The book can be confusing to read sometimes as the present and the past are spoken about in the same chapters but we learn a lot about Stuart during the book and I developed a lot of sympathy for ...  Read the complete review