Stuart: A Life Backwards (4th Estate Matchbook Classics)

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 Stuarts idea it starts with a deeply troubled thirty-two-year-old stepping out in front of the 11.15 train from London to Kings 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.