Katherine's review
Stuart : A Life Backwards
by Alexander Masters
Katherine's review
Stuart : A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters
Katherine's review
rating:
'I feel like I've lost a friend' This comment by Zadie Smith is scrawled across the back of my copy of 'Stuart: A Life Backwards'. I know exactly how she feels. Indeed upon finishing this biography I feel that I've almost lost two friends - both Stuart Shorter, the man whose life is being explored, and Alexander Masters, his biographer and our guide.
This book is both immensely funny, and intensely sad. It made me giggle out loud, and it made tears trickle down my cheeks. I both adored Stuart and was exasperated by him. Alexander is a perfect guide and also a far too honest one. This man's life, his failures, his torments, the abuse he faced, the mistakes he made, are all laid bare sometimes so that they are almost too impossible to cope with. To meet Stuart first as the man he is, and then to read his life story backwards, makes you marvel at the person he became. Let's not be romantic here - he became a thief and a hostage taker, yet he also was an incredibly intelligent man, wheth...more
This book is both immensely funny, and intensely sad. It made me giggle out loud, and it made tears trickle down my cheeks. I both adored Stuart and was exasperated by him. Alexander is a perfect guide and also a far too honest one. This man's life, his failures, his torments, the abuse he faced, the mistakes he made, are all laid bare sometimes so that they are almost too impossible to cope with. To meet Stuart first as the man he is, and then to read his life story backwards, makes you marvel at the person he became. Let's not be romantic here - he became a thief and a hostage taker, yet he also was an incredibly intelligent man, wheth...more
