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Shuggie Bain

Douglas Stuart (Goodreads Author)

4.39 · Rating details · 38,730 ratings · 5,565 reviews

Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings. Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie's guiding light b ...more

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Hardcover, 430 pages

Published February 11th 2020 by Grove Press

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Jan 21, 2020 Emily May rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary, arc, 2020

This is a very dark, depressing, gritty read. It also might be a challenging one for those unfamiliar with the Glasgow dialect-- not unlike the Edinburgh dialect in Welsh's Trainspotting.

It shares other similarities with Welsh's novel. Shuggie Bain is a story of substance addiction and abuse. Think of a possible content warning and it is probably in this book. Graphic rape. Physical and emotional abuse. And beyond these overt horrors, the narrative itself is just so... bleak. It seems fitting th This is a very dark, depressing, gritty read. It also might be a challenging one for those unfamiliar with the Glasgow dialect-- not unlike the Edinburgh dialect in Welsh's Trainspotting.

It shares other similarities with Welsh's novel. Shuggie Bain is a story of substance addiction and abuse. Think of a possible content warning and it is probably in this book. Graphic rape. Physical and emotional abuse. And beyond these overt horrors, the narrative itself is just so... bleak. It seems fitting that the cover is in black and white because Stuart makes this world feel so grim and grey with his descriptions. Even the most basic of actions feel ugly.

Hugh "Shuggie" Bain is a young boy just trying to get by in Thatcher-era Scotland. This novel - though the author's note makes you wonder how much of it is truly fiction - is about Shuggie's complex feelings towards his mother, Agnes, who is both his hero and a woman who is falling apart. She has been abandoned by Shuggie's father, alone with her kids and her alcoholism, trying to find small pieces of happiness in a life that feels so out of her control.

What makes this novel so sad is that you really can feel what it is to love so deeply a person who is failing you so terribly. Shuggie - and Douglas Stuart, I think - loves Agnes. He could be just another story about a neglected kid with an alcoholic parent, but this is nothing so one-dimensional as that. Even at her worst, it is impossible not to feel sympathy for Agnes. To feel her wanting to try, even as she fails.

There are demons big and small in this book. The kind that are selfish people who behave unkindly, the kind that are addictions which enslave a person, and the kind that made the Thatcher era such a misery for the Northern working class. I understand this culture too well. I grew up in Yorkshire, and the effect of this time was so great, the horrors so deeply-engraved that many people from working class areas still whisper the name "Thatcher" like a curse.

I would not recommend reading this unless you are in a good mental place. It is a horrible, dreary read, there's no doubt, but if you see past the layers of ugliness and allow this to rip your heart out, I also think there's a lot of love to be found in here.

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Nov 09, 2020 Roxane rated it really liked it

Reminded me of A Little Life. Outstanding, immersive, raw storytelling. Compelling characters.

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May 22, 2020 Paromjit rated it it was amazing

Shelves: family-drama, literary-fiction, netgalley

Winner of the Booker Prize 2020!

Without doubt, Douglas Stuart has written one of the books of the year, a coming of age story, an unflinching, bleak and emotionally heartbreaking portrayal of a beaten dysfunctional family and Glasgow community, suffering the agonising pains and despair of the Thatcher era in the 1980s. To this day, despite Margaret Thatcher's death, I have yet to forgive her for her divisive ideological policies and her all out war against Britain's poor and working classes, hig Winner of the Booker Prize 2020!

Without doubt, Douglas Stuart has written one of the books of the year, a coming of age story, an unflinching, bleak and emotionally heartbreaking portrayal of a beaten dysfunctional family and Glasgow community, suffering the agonising pains and despair of the Thatcher era in the 1980s. To this day, despite Margaret Thatcher's death, I have yet to forgive her for her divisive ideological policies and her all out war against Britain's poor and working classes, highlighted by her notorious claim that there was no such thing as society, as she laid waste to large sections of society with the huge rise in unemployment and poverty, devastating communities and lives. She is the precursor to what followed in the UK, right through to the recent times with the Bullingdon boys, David Cameron and George Osborne, making the poor, disabled and vulnerable pay for the 2008 crisis through the disaster that was austerity, laying the ground for what is happening today.

With illusions of a better life, the beautiful Agnes Bain leaves her husband for a taxi driver, a poor excuse of a philandering human being who fails and abandons her. A firm believer in the importance of how things look as opposed to how they are, a proud Agnes puts up a good front with her false teeth as her world falls apart, and she begins to drink as a coping mechanism for the failures in her life, becoming a slave to her addictions. In this movingly profound story of the young Hugh 'Shuggie' Bain from the age of 6 to 17, Shuggie is neglected and abandoned, even by his siblings, Leek and Catherine, entrusted with the duties and responsibilities of caring for Agnes, believing and hoping that his love for his mother will be enough. His life is further plagued by not fitting in the ideals of masculinity, a misfit viewed as not quite right, bullied, in a relentlessly dark narrative of violence and abuse.

This is powerful, desperate, tragic and harrowing storytelling, taking its toll on the reader, there is nevertheless, amongst the grim realities of life, slight slivers of light and hope. Stuart is with his characters, so compassionate, and understanding of the all too important context, for example, as Agnes is failed, so like the domino effect, she in turn goes on to fail others. Even as my heart broke for Shuggie and the life and world that is his fate, I cannot regret reading this superb debut, it is remarkable, so beautifully written with its terrific dialogue, and absolutely unforgettable. A novel that captures a forgotten history and impoverished Glasgow that paid the price with the horrors experienced by people and communities for policies designed by politicians to promote the inequalities that blight our country. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Pan Macmillan for an ARC. ...more

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Sep 10, 2020 Adina (taking a break from literary fiction) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: booker, british

Worthy winner of the Booker Prize 2020 I only read this book from the shortlist but I am so glad it won.

While I am not following the Booker Prize this year, I’ve decided to read Shuggie Bain because of a flood of positive reviews on my GR feed. Although the subject was bleak, I decided that the praise cannot be for nothing and that it will be worth it. It was, although it wasn’t easy to go through it.

The book is the portrait of a failed poor family in 1980’ s Glasgow during Thatcher, not a l Worthy winner of the Booker Prize 2020 I only read this book from the shortlist but I am so glad it won.

While I am not following the Booker Prize this year, I’ve decided to read Shuggie Bain because of a flood of positive reviews on my GR feed. Although the subject was bleak, I decided that the praise cannot be for nothing and that it will be worth it. It was, although it wasn’t easy to go through it.

The book is the portrait of a failed poor family in 1980’ s Glasgow during Thatcher, not a luminous period in the City’s history. The period was plagued by high unemployment and its aftermath: poverty, violence, drugs, prostitution, alcoholism. First of all, Agnes Bain would have been a more suitable name for the novel. She is Shuggie’s mother and an alcoholic. Actually, the whole book circles around her fight with the addiction and her misery, triggered by the gap between her poor choices in men and her overreaching ambitions in life. With an absent father and two older siblings who found their own methods to get away from home, Shuggie starts to take care of his mum at an age where he should only be playing. He helps her undress and makes her tea in the mornings to help with the hangover. He later learns to read the signs and predict the state of her drinking stupor so he can find the best ways to attend to her needs. Agnes drinks all their money and they often have no food. In order to maintain the appearances of wealth she spends more money than she receives from social aid on things bought from a catalogue. However, she keeps her standards, always dresses immaculately and wears perfect makeup, even at her worst. Besides having to take care of her mother and school. Shuggie faces an additional struggle, the coming to terms with his sexuality, his need to be normal and the bullying he has to suffer from the others kids. Despite everything, Shuggie fiercely loves and protect his mother and that is what makes the novel even more heartbreaking. Agnes loves him back but her affection is not enough to make her quit “the drink”.

For this debut novel, the author got inspired to write his book from his own childhood and his mother struggle with the drink. Although the author is also gay he said that the novel is not autobiographical.

Shuggie Bain is bleak, heartbreaking, agonizing and tragic but it also offers some glimmers of hope here and there. The book is bit on the long side, a bit repetitive but it was necessary so it can make the reader understand the cycles between sobriety and drunkenness and alcoholic goes through in hie/her struggle.

I both listened and read the novel and I can say that the audiobook enhanced my experience. The dialogues are written in Glaswegian slang and the narrator does an excellent job differentiating between the characters and the way they speak, which also means his accent is sometimes very strong. Having said that, after an hour or so of listening I got used to it and had no problem to continue.

I hope this novel reaches the shortlist and maybe even wins the Booker prize. ...more

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Dec 22, 2019 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

CONGRATS... WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE

Huge congrats on the National award nomination

My heart and gut were grievously affected by this story.
I learned a lot. I felt even more.

I’ve already discussed this book in length with my husband- making him read parts with me. I tried to comprehend the brutal conditions...
I was a little confused in the beginning.... needing to read each sentence slowly.
I didn’t feel familiar -enough- with the setting or history.

I’m ashamed to say how little I knew abo ...more

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Feb 25, 2020 Marchpane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020-releases, read-in-2020, arc-from-netgalley, read-harder-2020

BOOKER PRIZE 2020 WINNER

I think my heart grew three sizes reading this.

Shuggie Bain is a young boy growing up in 80s Glasgow, with an alcoholic mother, absent father, and a dawning sense that he just doesn’t fit the same mould as all the other kids. It is a stark, evocative novel that presents both its setting and its characters with deep empathy.

We follow Shuggie from ages six to seventeen, but it is not much of a childhood as he spends most of it looking after his mother. Really, this nove ...more

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Jan 24, 2021 Beata rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

Rarely does it happen that a novel full of despair, bleakness and solitude engages me so deeply and fully. Reading the story of Shuggie and his family was never interrupted by a ray of something positive or uplifting. This novel is so real that makes you hurt and and the same time you do not wish to leave Shuggie with his mother, an alcoholic, but quite the contrary, you pray for a little sunshine at the end of the day.
Agnes's devastating addiciton destroys what is left of her family, with her ...more

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Mar 15, 2020 Angela M rated it really liked it

Shelves: edelweiss-reviews

I know it sounds cliche, but there’s no other way to describe this story as other than gut wrenching. It’s also beautifully written in authentic dialect which gives a feel of authenticity. If that’s not enough to make it feel real, you’ll think so when you read the first sentence of the Acknowledgements at the end.

This is a stark look at the impact of family dysfunction and alcoholism and the impact on the children who struggle through it. If this story of a family in Glasgow in the 1980’s does ...more

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Mar 05, 2020 Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it

4.5 I knew it! When I was only fifty pages or so into the book, I had the feeling it was going to break my heart. It did. Glasgow in the eighties, many live in council housing, a day to day existence. These people are so messed up, poor and struggling, trying to find money, love, desperate beyond belief. Agnes turns to drink, anything to escape the mess she has made of her life. Her three children, try their best, but it is never enough. One leaves home as soon as she can, leaving her mother and ...more

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Jan 03, 2020 Meike rated it it was amazing

Shelves: uk, 2020-read, 2020-booker

Well-deserved winner of the Booker Prize 2020
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a true gem, a wonderfully empathetic, but also tough novel about the son of an alcoholic mother growing up in Glasgow during the Thatcher era, and this debut might become all the rage this award season. Stuart's novel centers on young Shuggie, whose beautiful mother Agnes left her first husband - a steady and honest, but not very exciting man - because she dreamt of a more glamorous, affluent and adventurous life with he Well-deserved winner of the Booker Prize 2020
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a true gem, a wonderfully empathetic, but also tough novel about the son of an alcoholic mother growing up in Glasgow during the Thatcher era, and this debut might become all the rage this award season. Stuart's novel centers on young Shuggie, whose beautiful mother Agnes left her first husband - a steady and honest, but not very exciting man - because she dreamt of a more glamorous, affluent and adventurous life with her lover Shug. Caught up in her own want and daydreams, she marries the womanizing and abusive taxi driver and has her third child with him (Hugh, called Shuggie), but when Agnes realizes that he will not live up to her ideals and turn her life around, she starts wrecking herself with alcohol - and Shug leaves. Shuggie grows up feeling responsible for his mother, desperately trying to support her while feeling utterly helpless - at the same time, he struggles with his queerness, faces abuse and suffers under the oppressive poverty that surrounds him.

Stuart introduces us to a child who tries to take responsibility for overstrained grown-ups, his siblings who find different ways to cope, a woman whose happiness is fully dependent on the men she is with, a whole neighborhood going down with the collapsing industries, and working-class men and women who see their pride dwindle. Until today, Thatcher is a much-hated figure in Scotland, as during her time as Prime Minister, heavy industry pretty much collapsed, mines closed, the financial market was deregulated, and unemployment rocketed. Many workers felt like not only their livelihood, but their dignity was at risk (see the miners's strike 1984-1985), and Glasgow University found out that the rise in drug deaths in the 1980s was linked to the rise in inequality - the study talks about an "erosion of hope".

This "erosion of hope" is exactly what the characters in the novel experience. Stuart's writing is strongest when he paints individual, bleak pictures, grim vignettes about fear, brutality, surrender and self-hatred. Drunk and helpless, Agnes faces sexual assault, Shuggie is bullied and attacked, and the equally poor neighbors are fighting all kinds of demons, but they can all hardly find the strength to act in solidarity - they are overwhelmed by the cards life has dealt them. Meanwhile, Agnes' parents blame themselves, and especially her father, a worker of a different generation, has trouble stomaching what has become of his daughter - not that unworldly, selfish Agnes doesn't carry responsibility for her actions, she clearly does, but the reality that surrounds her makes it a lot harder for her to get up again, become sober and take another chance. Still, there are also glimpses of hope, there is love (although love is sometimes not enough) and the power of empathy and forgiveness.

A lot of dialogue is written in Scottish dialect, which gives the text an even grittier, more authentic feel. Stuart crafts elaborate scenes to illustrate (but never openly explain) his points, adding lots of atmosphere and giving intricate descriptions of people's looks, movements and behaviors: Agnes in a wet fur coat, shaking from withdrawal; Shuggie in his wellies stealing copper with his brother; balding Shug driving through Glasgow in his taxi - there are so many memorable scenes that shine through their almost visual quality and emotional intelligence.

This is a novel about a ravaged family in a desperate neighborhood, a story about addiction, and an evocation of a period of Scottish history that still reverberates. It is a compassionate text by a writer who knows what he is talking about, a companion piece to Trainspotting (not although, but because it is so different), a book not to be missed. ...more

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Aug 09, 2020 Eric Anderson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

So happy that Shuggie Bain has won the 2020 Booker Prize! You can watch my live reaction to the ceremony and an interview with Douglas Stuart immediately after he won the award here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxu5dYhyQFY

This must be one of the most powerful accounts of alcoholism that I've ever read. “Shuggie Bain” follows the early life of its eponymous hero, but really this novel and Shuggie himself are dedicated to his mother Agnes. In the early 1980s she's raising her children in a Sco ...more

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Jul 18, 2020 Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2021-orwell-prize, 2020, 2020-booker-longlist, 2020-booker-shortlist, booker-prize-winners

NOW DESERVED BOOKER PRIZE 2020 WINNER - and thanks to the BBC for featuring my congratulatory tweet just ahead of Nicola Sturgeon's (20: 38 and 20:45)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/erx3v2/l...

A desperately moving, heartbreaking book: one which places hope and despair, love and brokenness on the same page, treating them with equal weight and empathy.

I first read this book ahead of the Booker longlist and felt sure (see below) it would make that list and could even be a potential winner - turns out ...more

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Jan 15, 2021 Peter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley, buddy-read, favorites, literary-fiction

Escape
Shuggie Bain is a beautifully written, poignant account of a Glaswegian family and their struggles through poverty, family breakdown, alcoholism, and community divisiveness. In a society where misery and despair circle like vultures, after years of economic assault from a Thatcher government on working-class people, the Bain family’s own story is one of profound hardship and an attempt to escape their embattled lives.

Shuggie Bain is a young boy, effeminate in nature, speaking and acting i Escape
Shuggie Bain is a beautifully written, poignant account of a Glaswegian family and their struggles through poverty, family breakdown, alcoholism, and community divisiveness. In a society where misery and despair circle like vultures, after years of economic assault from a Thatcher government on working-class people, the Bain family’s own story is one of profound hardship and an attempt to escape their embattled lives.

Shuggie Bain is a young boy, effeminate in nature, speaking and acting in a manner that regularly brings him into conflict with the other neighbourhood boys. He wants to be ‘normal’ and challenges himself to act normal, to be more like the others, but his nature and his love for his mother are things he can’t escape. While the book title may recognise Shuggie Bain as the main character, his mother Agnes is just as much an absorbing and predominant personality. Agnes is a damaged person, and in my opinion, is the real star of the story. Agnes has two children to a previous husband, Catherine and Leek. Shuggie is the son to her latest husband Shug Bain who is cruel, selfish, abusive, and spends his time chasing other women until he leaves completely. Agnes holds onto the notion that she can dress and speak in a way that elevates her from those neighbours in the tenements and mining streets, but her alcohol addiction drags that image down.

“How she could no longer pretend that she was nothing like them, that she was better born and stuck only temporarily in their forgotten corner of misery. It was pride, not danger, that made her so angry.”

The scenes Agnes faces illustrates how hardship and humour are two sides of the same coin. With a dreary life and unusual characters, humour is always present and ready to light the darkest moments.

Agnes, Shug, Catherine, Leek, and Shuggie all dream of escape from this life and one by one they manage to achieve some level of a new life – all except Agnes and Shuggie, who are thwarted by the millstone alcohol has on Agnes. All the characters offer a unique blend of traits that illustrate an exceptional complexity in human personalities and relationships. The dark humour renowned in Glasgow is evident and is characteristically deployed at the most inopportune moments. The brilliant Scottish comedian Billy Connolly grew up in the tenements of Glasgow, working in the shipyards under tough conditions, with a sense of humour, a community where families lived on top of each other and shared a duty to support each other in daily needs. Douglas Stuart creates characters in Agnes and Shuggie who challenge that camaraderie, thinking they should be living loftier lifestyles, Agnes because she couldn’t accept how her life panned out, and Shuggie, because he was devoted to his mother and complied regardless. Douglas Stuart is from Glasgow and much of the background associated with Shuggie is drawn from personal experience and a reference to his own alcoholic mother states that “My mother died very quietly of addiction one day.”

I would highly recommend this book especially for readers who enjoy deep character studies, a challenging background and human character observational insights that are off the charts. All brought to life with wonderful writing that has been widely recognised as it is the winner of the Booker Prize for 2020.

This was a Buddy Read with two amazing friends and reviewers, Ceecee and Beata. I loved the chat throughout the book, and it does really add depth to the experience of hearing and discussing other perspectives. Thank you so much, guys. I would like to thank Pan Macmillan, Picador, Grove Press and NetGalley for providing me with a free ARC in return for an honest review. ...more

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Jan 30, 2020 Karen rated it really liked it

4.5
This is a very heart wrenching story of a young boy named Shuggie who was growing up in public housing in Glasgow.. third child of an alcoholic woman. The woman has three children .. the first two from one good man, who she leaves .. with both children for another man and then had Shuggie with him. The father of Shuggie was not a good man and he moved them all to public housing and then left them...and the woman became increasingly invested in alcohol.
Shuggie throughout this story tries whole ...more

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Aug 26, 2020 Prerna rated it it was amazing

Shelves: man-bookering, characters-close-to-my-heart, lgbtq

Winner of the Booker Prize 2020.

Reading Shuggie Bain is like lying at the depths of an ocean, watching the seemingly calm surface from the bottom only to know it is ephemeral, that it will be wrecked soon by seismic tremors beneath the floors. It is waiting to be thoroughly destroyed and engulfed. It is to be resigned to the fate awaiting you at the end of this book: a searing heartbreak. I knew it all along, yet I couldn't stop reading.

I couldn't take my eyes off of Agnes Bain, who was so vibra Winner of the Booker Prize 2020.

Reading Shuggie Bain is like lying at the depths of an ocean, watching the seemingly calm surface from the bottom only to know it is ephemeral, that it will be wrecked soon by seismic tremors beneath the floors. It is waiting to be thoroughly destroyed and engulfed. It is to be resigned to the fate awaiting you at the end of this book: a searing heartbreak. I knew it all along, yet I couldn't stop reading.

I couldn't take my eyes off of Agnes Bain, who was so vibrant, so full of life and yet disappearing a little with every flip of the page. She does not disappear as a character, no, her presence is all encompassing. It is her essence that keeps escaping our grasp, until like Shuggie, we are only holding onto a reflection of her black curls, hairspray and despair.

Shuggie Bain, the character as well as the eponymous book, demand your emotions and unwavering loyalty even in the face of tragedy. In my mind, I sat beside Shuggie, when he was a sweet little boy hoping his presence was enough to keep his mother from detonating. And I watched him grow up into a young man of seventeen, cleaning up after his mother and still foolishly hoping his mother would make it, that she would survive the utter chaos enveloping her, and it made my heart ache.

There was an emptiness in his belly. It was below his stomach; it went deeper than hunger. He sat at her feet and quietly started to talk to her. “I love you, Mammy. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you last night.

I might need to eat an entire rainbow to even marginally recover from the devastation that is this book. It is one thing to read a book unaware of what it will develop into, but it's a complete emotional whiplash to read a book that's about 430 pages long and know within the first twenty pages that it only has dark alleys and endless tunnels. A book instilled with such emotional devastation needs a suitable counterweight either in the form of a total commitment to honest morbidity or enthralling characters that one can't help but not abandon, and in Shuggie Bain's case, we see both.

A part of me will always remain in the shabby little house in the miner's district, watching Shuggie dance and Agnes clap along.

...more

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Feb 25, 2020 Felicia rated it it was amazing

This book is billed as a coming-of-age story but be warned...

Shuggie Bain is NOT a John Green book.

This is a graphic, gritty, unflinching coming-of-age story about the life of a precious child struggling for air under an avalanche of tribulations and his alcoholic mother of whom his love knows no bounds.

It takes a few chapters to settle into Shuggie's world but I implore you to stick it out.

Douglas Stuart's writing is exemplary in creating an immersive experience unlike any I've experienced in ...more

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Aug 06, 2020 Doug rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Update 11/19/20: Well, I'm gob smacked! But couldn't be more pleased! FINALLY, for ONCE - the Booker judges got it right! This is the FIRST time in my 7 years of reading the entire longlist that the judges and myself aligned!

Although I have had an ARC of this for quite a few months, it took making the Booker longlist for me to actually get around to reading it, but I am so glad I finally did. Although I have only read 4 of the 13 of this year's Booker nominees, so far, it is going to take a lot Update 11/19/20: Well, I'm gob smacked! But couldn't be more pleased! FINALLY, for ONCE - the Booker judges got it right! This is the FIRST time in my 7 years of reading the entire longlist that the judges and myself aligned!

Although I have had an ARC of this for quite a few months, it took making the Booker longlist for me to actually get around to reading it, but I am so glad I finally did. Although I have only read 4 of the 13 of this year's Booker nominees, so far, it is going to take a lot for something to knock this off the top of my rankings. It is a really special book, astonishing in the depth of feeling, characterization, and sheer storytelling brio; one can tell how carefully crafted each and every sentence is (apparently it took the author over a decade to complete this debut - and surely autobiographical - novel) - and although the subject matter is rather bleak and depressing, the ultimate feeling this left me with was uplifting and exhilarating. The character of Agnes is sui generis, but each of the characters is delineated with sharp insight and the telling detail. My one minor quibble is that there is a LOT of Scottish slang ('gallus' is a great new word for me!), and perhaps a glossary for the more outré of these would have been helpful.

Often I find it easier to review something I disliked at greater length, and I really have little more to say about this, other than I enjoyed every moment of it, and hope it doesn't take Stuart another decade for a follow-up. In fact, assuming this is autobiographical - and since it ends when Shuggie is still a teen and Stuart is now somewhere in his 40's, there COULD conceivably be a sequel or two left exploring the character of Shuggie himself!

Addendum: Just found this on the Booker website: "I am currently putting the finishing touches on my next novel, Loch Awe. It is set in 1990's Glasgow, and is the tale of two teenage boys, who fall in love despite being divided along territorial, sectarian lines. It takes a look at toxic masculinity and the pressure we place on working-class boys to 'man up'. I wanted to show how young men growing up in extreme poverty can be some of the most victimized and overlooked people in British society. I am always looking for tenderness in the hardest places." YAY!!!

Finally, this is a really interesting interview with the author - love just listening to his accent, but it also provides a glimpse into his process and what he wanted to do with the novel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwCd2.... What a lovely and charming man.

Three additional items that MIGHT be of interest to Shuggie fans:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-...

Many, MANY thanks to Grove Atlantic and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for this honest and enthusiastic review! ...more

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Dec 13, 2020 Marialyce (absltmom, yaya) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley, books-of-2020

What a truly sad story! My heart just broke for our protagonist Shuggie and of course his alcoholic mother, Agnes, who seemed to make the wrong choices in a place that was hard hit by poverty, hardship, and gloom. In essence, Agnes, is the main story line and as we follow her we feel great compassion not only for her struggles with alcohol, but also with a husband, a taxi driver, who philanders. Looking for love, Agnes only received the contempt of her husband who finally abandoned her and his s ...more

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Oct 14, 2020 Jennifer rated it really liked it

Shelves: alcoholism, coming-of-age, intimate-fiction

Shuggie Bain is a remarkable debut. In fact, to criticize it at all would be to say it was too tightly woven, and that there wasn’t enough breathing room for the protagonist to fully self-actualize. This didn’t do the story a disservice, however: I could imagine Shuggie, tightly wound and a little suffocated by all that was his mother. And Shuggie Bain/Douglas Stuart paints those around him with such attunement that I could almost smell them.

The star of this story is Agnes Bain, a spirited woma ...more

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Aug 28, 2020 Pedro rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: man-booker-prize-winner

First of all this novel shouldn’t have been titled Shuggie Bain as this story isn’t actually about him but about his mother and how her lifestyle and choices might have (eventually) shaped her son and his life. Everything about him was too nuanced to allow me to empathise with him and everything about his mother was too explicit for me to give a damn about her; and how many beers and glasses of vodka she needed to get drunk.

I know there’s always some kind of manipulative literary device behind First of all this novel shouldn’t have been titled Shuggie Bain as this story isn’t actually about him but about his mother and how her lifestyle and choices might have (eventually) shaped her son and his life. Everything about him was too nuanced to allow me to empathise with him and everything about his mother was too explicit for me to give a damn about her; and how many beers and glasses of vodka she needed to get drunk.

I know there’s always some kind of manipulative literary device behind every story that has ever been told but some authors tend to use it to the point where I spend more time wondering how their minds worked when telling the story than about the story itself. Because if an author decides to start a story with an older guy sexually harassing a kid, I want to know more, how the kid coped, the impact of this on him and maybe any consequences the pervert should’ve faced by the way!

But no, from that scene we go backwards in time instead and learn how many drinks and cigarettes the kid’s mother was having every day! Pages and pages of drinks and the mother’s frustrations and delusions. Plus a few mentions of the father’s love affairs, in case we were interested!

Speaking of the father, a taxi driver, his part of the story was what I think it makes for a dark and wonderful kind of read; Glasgow’s dark streets and alleys in the dead of night were wonderfully described, but unfortunately the guy didn’t have enough imagination to do anything else apart from thinking about new love conquests (and how to get rid of the old ones).

I’ve come across a few reviews of this novel recently and in general I can see people loved it. They say it’s dark; it’s not that dark guys, they say it’s bleak (aha!); nope, I’ll have to disagree again (sorry)! Finally it’s depressing; ok, I can agree about it being depressing but I’m not sure I felt the same kind of depressing feelings as those reviewers though!

I think that, perhaps, there’s some personal reasons for me not to have enjoyed this as much as I thought I would and definitely not as much as other readers did. All the poverty and hopelessness in this story seemed like heaven to me when compared with the life story of some (very) close people I know and care about.

No, I’m not making comparisons (I know there’s no way to measure suffering) but can you imagine, for example, what it would fell like to grow up with no parents at all (for some really nasty reasons); from the age of eight in a house with absolutely no conditions; and having your eleven year old brother as your only support till you both grow up? To be honest, and now that I’m thinking about it, I just realised I actually know a lot of real awful life stories involving children, but that’s not actually the point here.

The point is that I saw loads of potential in this one, but it ended up not having enough stamina for my liking. I only hope that next time Mr. Stuart would chose to tell us a story from his heart and not from his forgiving brain.

3 stars only because for a debut novel the writing was very good. ...more

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Jan 11, 2020 Cheri rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: debut-author, debut-novel, lgbtq, 1980s, 2020, historical-fiction, scotland, scottish-literature, alcohol-drugs, netgalley

!! NOW AVAILABLE !!

4.5 Stars

”The day was flat. That morning his mind had abandoned him and left his body wandering down below. The empty body went listlessly through its routine, pale and vacant-eyed under the fluorescent strip lights, as his soul floated above the aisles and thought only of tomorrow. Tomorrow was something to look forward to.”

Shuggie Bain, whose real name is Hugh, named after his father, Shug, a taxi driver who is the second husband of Agnes, Shuggie’s Mom. Despite Agnes d !! NOW AVAILABLE !!

4.5 Stars

”The day was flat. That morning his mind had abandoned him and left his body wandering down below. The empty body went listlessly through its routine, pale and vacant-eyed under the fluorescent strip lights, as his soul floated above the aisles and thought only of tomorrow. Tomorrow was something to look forward to.”

Shuggie Bain, whose real name is Hugh, named after his father, Shug, a taxi driver who is the second husband of Agnes, Shuggie’s Mom. Despite Agnes dazzling beauty, Shug seems unable or unwilling to be faithful to his vows, which only fuels her already acute desire for alcohol. They live in an impoverished section of Glasgow along with Shuggie’s siblings, Catherine and Leek, as well as Agnes’ parents. One by one disappearing over the years, leaving Shuggie overseeing, if not controlling, his mother’s drinking, ever hopeful that his love will save her from herself and the demons that haunt her.

Shuggie has his own problems outside of home, as well. At school he is bullied for not fitting in with the boys, for being too emotionally soft and effeminate, taunted by students as well as school staff, which also seems to make him an easy target for others, as well. What little money they receive goes to necessities, but with Agnes making those decisions alcohol falls into the necessary category.

Set during the 1980’s-90 when Thatcher was Prime Minister and the economy and industry collapsed, affecting the working-class families disproportionally, many living off unemployment during this time and losing hope for their future, the setting is a bleak one, rarely letting up. Still, enough light shines through which kept me from setting this aside, and Shuggie, who is an unforgettable character whose story was an incredible, powerful story of love.

For those who don’t typically read the acknowledgements, you will be shortchanging yourself if you bypass this one.

Pub Date: 11 Feb 2020

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Grove Atlantic – Grove Press & NetGalley ...more

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Sep 05, 2020 Dolors rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: The tender and the though

Shelves: giveaways, netgalley, read-in-2020

The title of this book should have been “Agnes Bain", as it is primarily about the self-destructive journey of a woman in her mid forties whose addiction to alcohol ruins the lives of her three children, particularly the youngest, a sensitive boy named Hugh after his brutish father.
Set in the Glasgow of the eighties in an impoverished neighborhood, the bleak situation of this family unravels painfully slow, at a deliberate lagging pace, in episodes of Agnes’ failed attempts at sobriety and the i ...more

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Aug 09, 2020 Hugh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2020, booker-winners, modern-lit

Worthy winner of the Booker Prize 2020.

A moving account of a deprived childhood in Glasgow which is as much about the alcoholic mother Agnes as it is about her eponymous son Shuggie. A very impressive debut novel, but it does feel like a fictional equivalent of a misery memoir, albeit a very well written one.

We follow Shuggie from early childhood through to his teenage years. We know that he will survive, because the first chapter sees him living alone in a Glasgow bedsit pretending to be older Worthy winner of the Booker Prize 2020.

A moving account of a deprived childhood in Glasgow which is as much about the alcoholic mother Agnes as it is about her eponymous son Shuggie. A very impressive debut novel, but it does feel like a fictional equivalent of a misery memoir, albeit a very well written one.

We follow Shuggie from early childhood through to his teenage years. We know that he will survive, because the first chapter sees him living alone in a Glasgow bedsit pretending to be older than he is.

The portrait of Agnes is vividly realised - she is a proud woman who is keen to maintain appearances and distinguish herself from the people around her, but her drinking starts to get out of control when her second husband, Big Shug, a Protestant taxi driver, starts cheating on her.

At the start of the book the family is living in with Agnes's Catholic parents, but most of the book is set on a bleak suburban estate built to serve a coal mine which falls victim to the Thatcher cuts. This estate is largely populated by Irish Catholic families. Big Shug moves his family there and immediately deserts them.

The eldest child Catherine marries a cousin and moves to South Africa. Her brother Leek, also a child of Agnes's first marriage, remains but eventually tires of the hopeless struggle to support Agnes and moves out, leaving Shuggie to look after his mother as her almost relentless decline continues. Shuggie's love for his mother never wavers, despite many trials. Shuggie has problems of his own, as he struggles to identify with the boys around him and discovers that he is gay, which is not easy in the tough environment, where his accent also marks him out.

The story, while clearly fictional, has a number of parallels with the author's own life - he was brought up in Glasgow, his mother was an alcoholic single parent with two older children, and the historical setting in a Glasgow ravaged by Thatcherism matches.

What stands out most is the quality of the writing - for such a bleak story it is a remarkably engaging read.

There is a little dialect in the main text, and rather more in the reported speech, and I did look up a few words to clarify the meanings, but compared to James Kelman, who is rather unjustly regarded as difficult to read, this never affected its readability.

This book should be a serious contender for the Booker prize~~, despite the strong competition from the likes of Mantel and McCann~~. ...more

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Sep 02, 2020 Neale rated it it was amazing

Longlisted (and hopefully shortlisted) for the 2020 Booker Prize.

Shuggie wants to be a hairdresser. He promised himself that at sixteen he would go to hair dressing college. And yet instead he finds himself working at a supermarket named Killfeathers. The reader also finds him alone and living in a tiny apartment. We are not privy as to why he is alone. or where his parents are. One thing is for certain though, he is lonely and poor.

Later he finds himself staring in the mirror at his reflection ...more

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Apr 11, 2020 fatma rated it it was ok

Shelves: arcs-e-review-copies, lgbtqia

Shuggie Bain is one of those novels where, for me, the form let down the content. This is a story about alcoholism, abuse, and poverty, and it is unremitting in its depiction of those things. For all its heavy subject matter, though, it left me largely impassive. It felt like the more the narrative wanted me to feel, the less I actually felt.

The crux of my problem with this novel is its form--that is, its narrative structure and writing style. The writing in Shuggie Bain falls under the weight Shuggie Bain is one of those novels where, for me, the form let down the content. This is a story about alcoholism, abuse, and poverty, and it is unremitting in its depiction of those things. For all its heavy subject matter, though, it left me largely impassive. It felt like the more the narrative wanted me to feel, the less I actually felt.

The crux of my problem with this novel is its form--that is, its narrative structure and writing style. The writing in Shuggie Bain falls under the weight of its story, not necessarily on a sentence-by-sentence basis, but on a more holistic level.

The narrative, here, suffers from a kind of stasis: it's repetitive, lacking dynamism in both character and plot. Over and over again we see Agnes, the main character in Shuggie Bain aside from Shuggie himself, engage in the same cycle of abuse: she drinks, she gets herself into increasingly precarious situations, she tries to quit drinking, she is seemingly on the mend, and then she relapses. Of course, I can recognize that this kind of cycle exists for many of those who have struggled with substance abuse; I never expected Agnes to get over years of substance abuse after a single attempt to quit drinking. My issue is that narratively, it didn't make for very engaging reading. It's one thing to be reading about the same plot point happening over and over again; it's another thing to have that plot point be about substance abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. The end result was that not only did I start to get impatient with the novel, but I also just started to feel increasingly distanced from and indifferent to its story.

More than that, though, I felt like I never got to know the characters beyond their suffering. There were a few scenes here and there that had genuinely earnest and caring character interactions, but beyond that it was just more of the same: characters either inflicting or being subjected to abuse.

To put it simply, Shuggie Bain largely prioritized the situational over the psychological: the overwhelming need to buy alcohol when you're already extremely financially straitened, the binge drinking and subsequent blackouts, the vulnerability that comes with being a child of an alcoholic mother. What I wanted from Shuggie Bain was to emphasize the psychological alongside the situational, to give me a closer look into the thoughts and emotions of its characters, to make me feel like I knew them and not just the things they did or the things that happened to them.

I want to tread carefully here because I don't want my criticism of this book to be "it was too depressing." Depressing things happen in the world; it feels like a bit of a disservice to call experiences that many people have gone through "too depressing," especially for a novel like this where, I believe, at least some of the story is autobiographical. My problem is not that it was a depressing story, but that it wasn't a particularly well told one.

I know I've been talking about the form and content of a novel as if they're two separate things, but really when it comes down to it, they're inextricable. The content doesn't exist without the form. When a story isn't told well, it doesn't matter how good or bad it is; the end result is just a poorly told story.

(Thanks so much Grove Atlantic for providing me with an e-ARC of this via NetGalley!) ...more

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Feb 28, 2021 Glenn Sumi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: booker-winners

One of the most moving and gut-wrenching novels I've ever read

I must confess: I had to take breaks from this big thick novel because at times it was simply too painful to read. Extreme poverty, alcoholism, bullying, homophobia, abuse – first-time novelist Douglas Stuart captures it all in intimate, authentic detail. And sometimes I found it just too much to take.

The Booker Prize-winning novel opens in 1992, when the 15-year-old Shuggie Bain is living alone in a delapidated Glasgow rooming house, One of the most moving and gut-wrenching novels I've ever read

I must confess: I had to take breaks from this big thick novel because at times it was simply too painful to read. Extreme poverty, alcoholism, bullying, homophobia, abuse – first-time novelist Douglas Stuart captures it all in intimate, authentic detail. And sometimes I found it just too much to take.

The Booker Prize-winning novel opens in 1992, when the 15-year-old Shuggie Bain is living alone in a delapidated Glasgow rooming house, working at a grocery store and dreaming of attending hairdressing school. He's just getting by, and tired of warding off the advances of one of the other lecherous, impoverished, heavy-drinking older boarders.

But it turns out he knows something about heavy drinking. We flash back to 1981, when Shuggie is growing up in his grandparents' apartment, with his glamorous mother, Agnes – who's said to look like Elizabeth Taylor – his father, Hugh (or "Big Shug"), and his older half-siblings Leek and Catherine. Agnes is a heavy-drinker, and her taxi driver husband's philandering – sometimes with her own friends – often brings along drinking bouts.

The family copes with her drinking in various ways; Hugh works the nightshift and sleeps around; the two older kids find refuges elsewhere. Only Shuggie stays at home with his mom. Soon Hugh finds them another home in a cesspool of a neighbourhood called Pithead – surrounded by an abandoned mine and slagheap – but he doesn't live with them. In fact, he moves in with someone else in another neighbourhood.

It's in Pithead that Agnes's drinking gets out of control. Once Catherine escapes – to go far away to get married in South Africa – it's up to the two boys to take care of her through benders and other activities she does to secure a liquid fix.

For a time, Agnes joins AA and meets a nice widower named Eugene, but he's uncomfortable with the fact that she doesn't drink. Things are fine for a while, until they're not. And Agnes's life spirals even further downhill.

Meanwhile, Shuggie – who's always been a bit of an outsider, preferring dolls and figurines to sports and so-called "normal" activities for boys – is dealing with bullying and ostracism, even from adult authority figures. He has a polite, fussy way of talking that brands him as odd. More than his siblings, he's forged a codependent, caretaking relationship with his mum, and has learned how to react to her every mood. (The kids are so sensitive that they can tell when they return home how far along she is in her drinking from the sounds she makes in the kitchen.) He also skips school to cash in her welfare coupons, which she uses for booze instead of food. On one level, the novel is a subtle indictment of the Thatcher era.

This novel is grim, but it's also full of a tough, dark humour – particularly when the Pithead women are bitching amongst themselves. Stuart's writing about the older Shug is unsparing; the once-desirable taxi driver is getting older, fatter and balder, and the things he does to try to maintain his looks are mercilessly detailed. Stuart doesn't spare Agnes, either, who's full of vanity, self-loathing and inarticulate yearnings. Even though she's troubled, and sick because of decades of alcoholism, it's clear she wants to be a good mother and a good woman for some man. She's just on a downward cycle that can only end badly.

The question hovering over much of the novel is: Will Shuggie survive his painful childhood, or is he irrevocably damaged? What's in store for him? And Stuart, who says the novel is semi-autobiographical – good LORD, I'm so glad he survived that – delivers a bittersweet, believable conclusion. It's not all rosy, but it's not entirely bleak, either.

This novel is going to take up residence in my head and heart for a while. There's a section recounting a particularly awful New Year's Eve that will likely haunt me for years. I'm sure the novel will resonate especially strongly with children of addicts.

The prose is clear and effective (much of the dialogue is in the Glasgow dialect, where "weans" means "wee ones," i.e. children), the insights into human behaviour unsparing and true. Sure, the novel could be 50 pages shorter, but I didn't mind spending time with Shuggie and Agnes, two real and unforgettable characters who leap off the page, demanding to be heard and loved. ...more

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Jan 27, 2021 Mark Porton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-stars, modern-fiction

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart is a story about a young boy called Hugh (Shuggie) Bain and his relationship with his alcoholic mother Agnes in working-class Glasgow in the 1980's. Shuggie also has a half-brother and half-sister living with him. They live with Agnes’ parents for a while, in a small council flat, then move to a desolate area with little employment and major social problems. Poor Shuggie is the constant in Agnes’ life, he cares for his Mum after her innumerable ‘benders’ and looks Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart is a story about a young boy called Hugh (Shuggie) Bain and his relationship with his alcoholic mother Agnes in working-class Glasgow in the 1980's. Shuggie also has a half-brother and half-sister living with him. They live with Agnes’ parents for a while, in a small council flat, then move to a desolate area with little employment and major social problems. Poor Shuggie is the constant in Agnes’ life, he cares for his Mum after her innumerable ‘benders’ and looks after her from the time he is a wean, until the early 1990's when he is a teenager. His Father (Big Shug), is a right old bastard with very few redeeming features at all. In fact, Big Shug is one of the many detestable characters in this story.

The author describes the environment of working-class Glasgow with great skill. I can relate this to my childhood in working-class Birmingham (UK) in the 1970's – and three words come to mind “Grey”, “Wet” and “Aggravation”. This is the picture Stuart paints of Shuggie’s world. The author really nails the abject misery of the place, the public housing, the street gossip, the subtle rippling of the net curtains – whenever there is movement on the street, the violence, the poverty and the grey, miserable wetness of it all. I bet this same picture could be portrayed for any major industrialised UK city in the 1970s and 80s.

Two main themes really hit me between the eyes during this reading:

1. Addiction

Even though this story related to alcohol addiction, many of the experiences of the characters could probably apply to any form of addiction – such as gambling, drugs or the like. But there is something about alcoholism that makes it different, it is so affordable and very accessible. We get to see the whole hopelessness of it all. The horrible consequences of recidivism that are so destructive to those around the addict are described so well in this book. It really is a gruelling read. This author must have some first-hand experience of this topic (himself or someone close) because he is so on point. There is very little light shining through in this story, and even when there is a flicker of hope, it is so, so faint it hardly casts any light at all.
The tiny fragments of hope are so fragile.

2. Poverty

As this story takes place during Margaret Thatcher’s era, a period of considerable industrial strife, unemployment, de-industrialisation and poverty come to the fore. Agnes and her kids spend some time living in an area where the mines have shut, consequently, men are idle, mothers are trying to feed weans and run a home and those same weans are running rampant. It’s not a very nice mix and associated issues involving crime, violence and addiction are widespread.

The author beautifully describes the sanctity of the mother-son relationship, in this case, the unconditional devotion of a young boy towards his damaged mother. Poor Shuggie is not only managing Agnes’ terrible situation he’s also negotiating his own upbringing. This includes him confronting bullying from the other boys at the rough schools he attends. This proves to be particularly difficult as he possesses some of the ‘softer’ male attributes. His schooling would have been a nightmare.

Shuggie felt something was wrong. Something inside him felt put together incorrectly. It was like they could all see it, but he was the only one who could not say what it was. It was just different, and so it was just wrong./i>

This book was captivating, a real page-turner. It occupied my thoughts in between reading sessions, you know it’s good when that happens. I have just discovered the author wrote this book over a 10-year period – NO WONDER there is so much jammed into each chapter.

Brilliant.

5 Stars

Big thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in return for a review. ...more

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Aug 23, 2020 Peter Boyle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-reads-2020, booker-nominee

This heartbreaking tale of alcoholism and poverty in 1980s Scotland knocked me over. Yes it's bleak, but it's a completely engrossing story of a boy's love for his mother. A remarkable debut from Douglas Stuart.

We begin in 1992. 15-year-old Shuggie Bain is living in a grim bedsit, doing his best to avoid the advances of the creepy old man in the room next door. The story then flashes back a decade earlier. A tiny high-rise apartment houses the Bain family, in a downtrodden part of Glasgow. Shugg This heartbreaking tale of alcoholism and poverty in 1980s Scotland knocked me over. Yes it's bleak, but it's a completely engrossing story of a boy's love for his mother. A remarkable debut from Douglas Stuart.

We begin in 1992. 15-year-old Shuggie Bain is living in a grim bedsit, doing his best to avoid the advances of the creepy old man in the room next door. The story then flashes back a decade earlier. A tiny high-rise apartment houses the Bain family, in a downtrodden part of Glasgow. Shuggie's father Hugh (nicknamed Big Shug) drives a taxi at night, and has an eye for the ladies. His mother Agnes has a drinking problem, which tends to get worse when she suspects her husband's philandering. Catherine and Leek, Shuggie's older siblings, tend to avoid the flat when their mother is one of her benders. However, little Shuggie has no option but to stay at home. There is one ray of hope: Hugh has secured a house on the outskirts of Glasgow, where the family will have more space and a front door of their own. A chance at a fresh start, Agnes tells herself. But the move ends up posing a new set of problems to the Bains.

The story paints a sorry picture of 80s Glasgow. It's a city on its knees, crippled by unemployment and an uncaring Tory government. Shug watches it through his taxi windscreen and doesn't like what he sees:

"The city was changing; he could see it in people’s faces. Glasgow was losing its purpose, and he could see it all clearly from behind the glass. He could feel it in his takings. He had heard them say that Thatcher didn’t want honest workers any more; her future was technology and nuclear power and private health. Industrial days were over, and the bones of the Clyde Shipworks and the Springburn Railworks lay about the city like rotted dinosaurs. Whole housing estates of young men who were promised the working trades of their fathers had no future now. Men were losing their very masculinity."

Though the title bears Shuggie's name, the story is really about Agnes. Her alcoholism worsens with every disappointment that life brings. She's a good-looking woman and has always felt that she deserved more than her unhappy existence. Leek understands that this frustration drives his mother. When he comes home filthy from the quarry, she's not cross with him for hanging around in such a dangerous place, it's for showing her up:

"It was the dust that bothered Agnes. It was what the neighbours must think when they saw him come back covered in soot and dirt. How she could no longer pretend that she was nothing like them, that she was better born and stuck only temporarily in their forgotten corner of misery. It was pride, not danger, that made her so angry."

What's most moving of all is the unconditional love Shuggie has for Agnes, even after all the torture she has put him through. Cleaning the vomit from her face after another heavy night's drinking. Going hungry again because she has spent all of their money on beer and vodka. The absolute terror that she will eventually kill herself. These are all things a child should never have to experience, but Shuggie still believes that nobody can compare to his Mammy:

"She was no use at maths homework, and some days you could starve rather than get a hot meal from her, but Shuggie looked at her now and understood this was where she excelled. Everyday with the make-up on and her hair done, she climbed out of her grave and held her head high. When she had disgraced herself with drink, she got up the next day, put on her best coat, and faced the world. When her belly was empty and her weans were hungry, she did her hair and let the world think otherwise."

It's a heart-wrenching story, and it brought me close to tears on many occasions. You can't help rooting for these characters, even for Agnes in all her vanity and self-destruction, willing her to give AA just one more try. And the first line of the book's acknowledgements might be the most poignant sentence of all. A magnificent novel, told with unflinching honesty and profound emotion. ...more

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Jan 29, 2021 PattyMacDotComma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction-adult, award-win-listed, aa, arc-netgalley-done, kindle, 5000-books-lor-2021, favourites-adult, politics-culture-social

5★
“The doormen always saw her gleaming at the back of the line and beckoned her forward, and she pulled the other girls behind her like a chain gang. They held on to the belt of her coat and muttered protest, but Agnes just smiled her best smile for the doormen, the smile she kept for men, the same one she hid from her mother.”

Shuggie Bain’s mum. Agnes was a beautiful child who was adored and spoiled by her father, from whom she learned how to get anything she wanted. She loved clothes, make-up, ...more

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Dec 11, 2020 James rated it it was amazing

What good was a soft boy in a hard world?

Easily the best book I've read all year. It had everything I could possibly want from a 5-star read: complex, compelling characters that I cared deeply about and will never forget; beautiful, sharp, soaring prose; and profound, illuminating truths about the joys and frailty of the human condition.

What I loved most about this breathtaking debut novel, however, is that it never once strikes a single false note. Even with authors and books I greatly adm ...more

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About Douglas Stuart

Douglas Stuart

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Douglas Stuart is a Scottish - American author. His debut novel, 'Shuggie Bain,' is the winner of the 2020 Booker Prize.

‘Shuggie Bain’ was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction, the Center For Fiction First Novel Prize, and the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. He is currently at work on his second novel.

His short stories, 'Found Wanting,' and 'The Englishman,' have been published by The New ...more

Books by Douglas Stuart

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Quotes from Shuggie Bain

“She was no use at maths homework, and some days you could starve rather than get a hot meal from her, but Shuggie looked at her now and understood this was where she excelled. Everyday with the make-up on and her hair done, she climbed out of her grave and held her head high. When she had disgraced herself with drink, she got up the next day, put on her best coat, and faced the world. When her belly was empty and her weans were hungry, she did her hair and let the world think otherwise.” — 18 likes

“Shuggie heard the nurse say to a male attendant that she thought for sure Agnes was a working girl. “She is not,” said Shuggie, quite proudly. “My mother has never worked a day in her life. She’s far too good-looking for that.” The matted mink coat gave her an air of superiority, and her black strappy heels clacked out a slurred beat on the long marble hallway.” — 12 likes

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