Book Review: Stuart - A Life Backwards

Young volunteer at a Cambridge hostel for the homeless meets young homeless man and they decide to write the story of the latter's life. Backwards. Only it's not entirely backwards, since it ends, rather than begins, with his death, having shortly before the end discussed his childhood and its attendant traumas.

The chapters deal with blocks of time from Stuart's life, and these are taken in reverse order, but within each chapter time flows in its normal direction. So the narrative takes the form of a kind of running stitch - leaping backwards behind the scenes to start at a point several years before the previous stitch, but then moving forwards during the course of the chapter.

Masters is neither totally absorbed by, nor totally aloof from, Stuart. Their partnership in the creation of the work leads to what appears to be a "real" friendship - possibly, even, the only one Stuart has ever had - and indeed this is perhaps one reason for the criticisms that this isn't a "proper" biography. But the author skilfully avoids the traps of sentimentality, solutionising, or preaching when recounting the problems that Stuart deals with daily, whether these be internally or externally generated.

Perhaps the single most important thing this book taught me is that there are no simple explanations for why someone becomes homeless, or remains homeless, and similarly there are no simple solutions. But there are other lessons too. That it can happen to anyone, for example. Both homelessness and injustice. There's a lot of "there but for the grace of God" in this, but it is never mawkish, boorish, or overly focussed on the often horrific facts of Stuart's existence.

It's one of those books that, while it's occasionally an uncomfortable read, also occasionally has you laughing out loud. It certainly provoked one of the most interesting debates we've had for a long time at book club.