It explores how a young boy, somewhat disabled from birth, became mentally unstable, criminal and violent, living homeless on the streets of Cambridge.
As the title suggests, the book starts from Shorter's adult life, and works backwards to trace through his troubled childhood, examining the effects his family, schooling and disability had on his eventual state.
Shorter was born in a condemned cottage on the edge of Cambridge, the son of Andrew Turner (called Rex in the book and dramatisation), a gypsy and Sonia (Judith), (née Tierney), a barmaid.
[8] In 1999, Shorter became a leading figure in the campaign to release Ruth Wyner and John Brock, the Director and Day Centre Manager of Wintercomfort for the Homeless, who had been sent to prison because some of the people they were looking after had been secretly trading drugs on the charity's premises.
[9] Shorter negotiated with police to organise marches and vigils, and arranged the campaign's most successful gesture, a three-day sleep-out of homeless people outside the Home Office in London, which ended in the release of the "Cambridge Two" after just six months.
On 6 July 2002, just outside his home village of Waterbeach, Stuart Shorter was hit by the 11.15pm London to King's Lynn train, and was killed instantly.