It isn't all grim. Despite his problems, Stuart retains a sense of humor and reveals glimmers of sharp intelligence that belie years of sniffing glue, alcoholism, and antipsychotic medication. Many reviewers have found the book "funny," even "hilarious," but there is so much pain here: Stuart's pain, the pain of those who try to help Stuart, and even Masters' pain. Sometimes Masters wishes Stuart would just die; he's that difficult and his problems are that intractable. By his very nature he proves a slippery subject for standard biography, even a backwards one. Masters demands of him, "But some sense of time – you must have had that?"
"Nah. Some minutes was long, other minutes was short. I know that. Sometimes I was in the park, sometimes I wasn't. Sometimes I was in a cell, sometimes I wasn't. Sometimes, which were supposed to be weeks and months – I don't think they happened at all."
Masters' research eventually takes him back to the event or events that "murdered the boy I was." The truth is that Stuart was murdered, again and again, by the people who should have taken the best care of him, by a system erected to protect children like him, by a criminal justice system that processes men like him, and finally by a world that could make no place for him.
The "backwards" approach creates a strong sense of suspense, though occasionally the narrative is unnecessarily confusing. This is a small fault in an otherwise masterful piece of work. Stuart will touch you deeply and leave you with more understanding of those hard cases whom a famous teacher once called "the least of these my brothers."
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!