Read With Us
Spring Selection 2022
Brief Synopsis
The astonishing sophomore effort from Booker Prize winner Stuart (Shuggie Bain) details a teen’s hard life in north Glasgow in the post-Thatcher years. Mungo is 15, the youngest of three Protestant siblings growing up in one of the city’s poverty-stricken “schemes.” The children’s alcoholic mother leaves them periodically for a married man with children of his own. Mungo’s father is long gone, and Mungo’s sister, Jodie, looks after their household as best she can. Hamish, Mungo’s hooligan brother and ringleader of a gang of Protestant Billy Boys, is a constant threat to Mungo, who, tender of heart and profoundly lonely, is at the mercy of his violent moods. Even after Mungo meets the kindred James, a Catholic boy who keeps pigeons, he is overwhelmed by his self-loathing, assuming all the calamity around him is somehow his fault. He doesn’t have a clue what it is he wants. All he knows is that amid the blood and alcohol and spittle-sprayed violence of his daily existence, James is a gentle, calming respite. Their friendship is the center of this touching novel, but it also leads to a terrifying and tragic intervention. Stuart’s writing is stellar—a man’s voice sounds “like he had a throatful of dry toast”; a boy has “ribs like the hull of an upturned boat.” He’s too fine a storyteller to go for a sentimental ending, and the final act leaves the reader gutted. This is unbearably sad, more so because the reader comes to cherish the characters their creator has brought to life. It’s a sucker punch to the heart. Agent: Anna Stein, ICM Partners. (Apr.)
Information About the Author
Douglas Stuart is a Scottish – American writer. He is the author of Young Mungo. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain, is the winner of the 2020 Booker Prize.
Shuggie Bain won the Sue Kaufman award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters. It won the British Book of the Year, and The British Debut of the Year, at the British book awards in 2021. Shuggie Bain was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction, the Pen Hemingway Award, the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, The Rathbones Folio, the LA Times Art Seidenbaum Award, and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize.
His short stories have been published by The New Yorker. His writing on Gender, Class and Anxiety was featured on Lit Hub.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, after receiving his MA from the Royal College of Art in London, he has lived and worked in New York City.
Book Reviews
Author Interviews
WBUR Here and Now April 19, 2022
NPR – Brace yourself for ‘Young Mungo,’ a nuanced heartbreaker of a novel
Other Information
