Shuggie Bain

A Novel

by Douglas Stuart
Douglas Stuart

ebook

5 of 6 copies available

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

A stunning debut novel by a masterful writer telling the heart-wrenching story of a young boy and his alcoholic mother, whose love is only matched by her pride.

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 but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good—her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamorous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion's share of each week's benefits—all the family has to live on—on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs. Agnes's older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is "no right," a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her—even her beloved Shuggie.

A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Édouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell.

Creators
- Douglas Stuart
  
  Author
- Douglas Stuart
  
  Author
Publisher

Grove Atlantic
Awards
Release date

February 11, 2020
Formats
- Kindle Book
- OverDrive Read
  - ISBN: 9780802148056
- EPUB ebook
  - ISBN: 9780802148056
  - File size: 1139 KB
Accessibility
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Ways Of Reading
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Conformance
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Languages
- English
Reviews
- Library Journal
  
  Starred review from November 1, 2019
  DEBUT This compulsively readable debut novel follows a boy growing up in 1980s and 1990s Glasgow, Scotland. It opens in 1992 with Shuggie Bain at age 15 living alone in a boarding house. Where is his family? The rest of the book provides answers. We first meet Shuggie at age six living in a tenement with fashionable mother Agnes, father Shug, stepsiblings Leek and Catherine, and his grandparents. Shuggie likes dolls and is what would today be called gender-nonconforming. In exquisite detail, the book describes the devastating dysfunction in Shuggie's family, centering on his mother's alcoholism and his father's infidelities, which are skillfully related from a child's viewpoint. It also shows how daily trauma within the family wrecks a child's psyche, a situation made doubly hard for Shuggie as he is not accepted by his peers. Agnes is eventually lured by Shuggie's father into living in an isolated community outside the city, which exacerbates her alcoholism and leads to a downward spiral. VERDICT As it beautifully and shockingly illustrates how Shuggie ends up alone, this novel offers a testament to the indomitable human spirit. Very highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 8/5/19.]--Henry Bankhead, San Rafael P.L., CA
  
  Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- Publisher's Weekly
  
  November 18, 2019
  Stuart’s harrowing debut follows a family ravaged by addiction in Glasgow during the Thatcher era. Agnes Bain yearns to move Shug, her taxi-driving, “selfish animal” of a second husband, and three children out of the tiny apartment they share with her parents in Glasgow in 1981. Shug secures them a council flat, but when they arrive he leaves them in a flurry of violence, blaming Agnes’s drinking. While Agnes’s daughter, Catherine, escapes the misery of Agnes’s alcoholism and the family’s extreme poverty by finding a husband, and her older son, Leek, retreats into making art, Hugh (nicknamed “Shuggie” after his absent father) assumes responsibility for Agnes’s safety and happiness. As the years pass, Shuggie suffers cruelty over his effeminate personality and endures sexual violence. He eventually accepts that he’s gay; meanwhile, Agnes finds some hope by entering A.A., landing a job, and dating another taxi driver named Eugene, but she later backslides. As Shuggie and his mother attempt to improve their lives, they are bound not just by one another but also to the U.K.’s dire economic conditions. While the languid pace could have benefited from condensing, there are flashes of deep feeling that cut through the darkness. This bleak if overlong book will resonate with readers. Agent: Anna Stein, ICM Partners.
- Kirkus
  
  Starred review from November 1, 2019
  Alcoholism brutally controls the destiny of a beautiful woman and her children in working-class Scotland. The way Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting carved a permanent place in our heads and hearts for the junkies of late-1980s Edinburgh, the language, imagery, and story of fashion designer Stuart's debut novel apotheosizes the life of the Bain family of Glasgow. Stunning, raven-haired Agnes Bain is often compared to Elizabeth Taylor. When we meet her in 1981, she's living with her parents and three "weans" in a crowded high-rise flat in a down-and-out neighborhood called Sighthill. Her second husband, Hugh "Shug" Bain, father of her youngest, Shuggie, is a handsome taxi driver with a philandering problem that is racing alongside Agnes' drinking problem to destroy their never-very-solid union. In indelible, patiently crafted vignettes covering the next 11 years of their lives, we watch what happens to Shuggie and his family. Stuart evokes the experience of each character with unbelievable compassion--Agnes; her mother, Lizzie; Shug; their daughter, Catherine, who flees the country the moment she can; artistically gifted older son Leek; and the baby of the family, Shuggie, bullied and outcast from toddlerhood for his effeminate walk and manner. Shuggie's adoration of his mother is the light of his life, his compass, his faith, embodied in his ability to forgive her every time she resurrects herself from a binge: "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." How can love be so powerful and so helpless at the same time? Readers may get through the whole novel without breaking down--then read the first sentence of the acknowledgements and lose it. The emotional truth embodied here will crack you open. You will never forget Shuggie Bain. Scene by scene, this book is a masterpiece.
  COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- Booklist
  
  January 1, 2020
  While Glaswegian Stuart's first novel begins with, ends with, and is titled for young Shuggie Bain, the book, like Shuggie himself, revolves around Shuggie's mother, Agnes. In the 1980s and early '90s in Glasgow, Agnes can't hide her alcoholism any more than Shuggie can fit in with other kids. They and Shuggie's taxi driver father, the original Shug, live in an apartment with Agnes' parents until Shug moves them into a moldy little house on the outskirts of a defunct coal mine and jumps the family ship. Left to her own devices in gloomy, gossipy Pithead, Agnes maintains an elegant appearance and a round-the-clock buzz, while Shuggie becomes an expert in studying their meager government benefits and his mother's many moods. He finds a precarious foothold as Agnes' caretaker and slowly builds his defenses against those who call him "a wee poof" and do him physical harm. Perfect for getting lost in, Stuart's richly wrought coming-of-age saga is a trenchant portrayal of poverty and addiction, true to life and steeped in its era, setting, and dialect.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)
- Good Reading Magazine
  
  Glasgow in the time of Margaret Thatcher: grim, gritty and grey. ‘Rain is the natural state of Glasgow. It keeps the grass green and the people pale and bronchial.’ The mines were closing and Glasgow was a post-industrial wasteland. As the story begins, Shuggie Bain (Shuggie being the Scottish diminutive of Hugh) is still school age, but living in a bedsit on his own. The obvious questions are: why is he on his own? And where is his family? When we meet them Shuggie’s situation begins to explain itself. His father, Big Shug, is a taxidriver, womaniser and too eager with his fists. His mother, Agnes, is damaged. The parts left unbroken by her husband have been ruined by drink. Catherine and Leek, older half-siblings, keep out of the way, but Shuggie clings to his mother. He doesn’t realise his love of a doll and his prissy politeness make him a target. He reflects that ‘something inside himself felt put together incorrectly.’ If the men are absent, there is little money; if they’re present, so are fresh bruises. The women need to manage the home, their kids and their men on a pittance and coupons. The misery is certainly deep enough to wallow in. But are there green shoots of hope or happiness? Agnes gets herself sober and meets Eugene. Catherine has already married to escape; Shuggie and Leek keep their fingers crossed, just in case. Agnes tries, fails, tries again, but Shuggie knows ‘nobody gets to be made brand new.’ Through all of this comes the unanswerable question: how do you help someone who will not be helped? This is extremely well written but far from cheerful. If you have a loving home, feel free to count your blessings. Reviewed by Bob Moore
- BookPage
  
  Witness the tragic descent of Agnes Bain through the loving eyes of her youngest son, Shuggie. In poverty-stricken 1980s Glasgow, Agnes is the beloved daughter of hardworking Catholics. Known for her elegance and beauty, and already married with two children, she wins the heart of a charismatic taxi driver named Big Shug. Agnes, her children and Shug move in with her parents, but trouble begins after they have Shuggie. One by one, the members of Agnes’ family leave until only she and her favorite, Shuggie, remain. During the Thatcher era, “industrial days [are] over,” and in an increasing privatized economy, miners and shipyard workers are unemployed, given to restlessness. “Out came the characters shellacked by the grey city, years of drink and rain and hope holding them in place.” Scenes of abandoned coal mines and council housing mimic the dismal mood in the Bain household. Chapters chronicle a downward spiral of drinking, fighting, fleeing, stealing, revenge, sexual aggression and parties gone awry. But a few loving encounters offer hope amid trauma: Shuggie’s big brother saves the day more than once, and Shuggie befriends a girl whose mother is also an alcoholic. Amid Shuggie’s struggles to be “normal,” Shuggie Bain develops a palpable sense of helplessness. Picked on for playing with dolls, dancing, dressing neatly and speaking with proper diction, he is mostly friendless. He works hard to help maintain his mother’s dignity, often staying home from school to keep “uncles” at bay and to make sure they have food. But despite his best efforts, Agnes’ condition is beyond his control. Douglas Stuart’s anxious novel is both a tragedy and a survival story. Shuggie is as neglected as Glasgow, but through his mother’s demise, he discovers his strength. Shuggie Bain celebrates taking charge of one’s own destiny.