In this extraordinary book, Alexander Masters has created a moving portrait of a troubled man, an unlikely friendship, and a desperate world few ever see. A gripping who-done-it journey back in time, it begins with Masters meeting a drunken Stuart lying on a sidewalk in Cambridge, England, and leads through layers of hell…back through crimes and misdemeanors, prison and homelessness, suicide attempts, violence, drugs, juvenile halls and special schools–to expose the smiling, gregarious thirteen-year-old boy who was Stuart before his long, sprawling, dangerous fall.

Shocking, inspiring, and hilarious by turns, Stuart: A Life Backwards is a writer’s quest to give voice to a man who, beneath his forbidding exterior, has a message for us all: that every life–even the most chaotic and disreputable–is a story worthy of being told.

亚历山大•马斯特斯（Alexander Masters, 1965— ），英国传记作家，现居英国剑桥，曾在一家流浪汉收容所工作过。《倒带人生》（2005）是其处女作，该书荣获《卫报》“第一书奖”，并被英国广播公司（BBC）制作成电影，由汤姆•哈迪和本尼迪克特•康伯巴奇饰演剧中角色。他的第二部书《我地下室里的天才》（2011）是关于住在他所住公寓地下室里的一位天才数学家西蒙•菲利浦斯•诺顿的生平。