![]() Two sons were dead, Stuart having followed his elder brother 'Gavvy' (name changed to protect his children) into an early grave within the space of five years. When I met Zoe and Sonia Shorter back then, the rules and loyalties that govern most families were long since dead or divided for them. When it is screened by the BBC, the book jacket will be redesigned and publicity will begin all over again. A film of the book starts shooting this month by the production company owned by Sam Mendes. Masters won the Guardian First Book Award and the Hawthornden Prize, and was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. It is about to be published in America, Germany, Holland, Israel, Italy, Poland and Taiwan. ![]() The book is a phenomenal success, in terms of publishing and critical reception. I remember thinking with a sinking heart that, accomplished and funny and heartrending as Stuart: A Life is, how many people are going to want to spend Sunday afternoon reading a book about a homeless man taking smack in the gutter?Įighteen months on, the answer is this: 102,000, to be exact (12,000 sales in hardback, 90,000 in paperback). A biography about a homeless drug addict with a penchant for 'little strips of silver' (knives to you and me)? Hardly the Life of Great Achievement (or any achievement come to that). Still, looking back now to that afternoon 18 months ago, no one - not even Masters, certainly not the Shorters - could have predicted the impact the book was to have, how it was to change their lives. He carried on and finished the book, which was nothing short of brilliant in every way. Masters had invested too much in it - years in fact - to abandon it. He probably committed suicide, although this was never confirmed. It had been an ambitious project, collaborative in every way, until Stuart stepped in front of the train.
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