Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

Published: 2020, Picador

Genre: Fiction

Themes: Glasgow, poverty, alcoholism

My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤

Shuggie Bain is a novel about love and loyalty and hope.

The kind of love that allows young Shuggie to help his alcoholic mother into her good black tights. The kind of loyalty that makes him leap back to her side rather than stay with his traitorous father in a house where he would at least get fed. The kind of hope that keeps him going because maybe one day his beautiful mother will get better and they can both start a new life as normal people.

Young as he is, Shuggie quickly learns to do what he has to, rather than what he should do. He doesn't comment on the 'uncles' that come calling on school-day afternoons, dangling the temptation of a few cans of Special Brew that they consider to be fair exchange for a little more than her charming company. He knows when to make himself scarce and not to be a bother, and most importantly, he learns to manage her moods as she drunkenly drifts from self pity into destructive rage. Shuggie is the only one who can still believe in her dreams of a better life and his faithful support is her only chance of turning them into reality.

Douglas Stuart's writing is completely absorbing. The intimacy of the detail brings you right into the neglected housing scheme that once provided homes for miners and their families. You can feel the cold wind swirling the coal dust and the freezing rain soaking through everything it touches; adding another layer of misery to an abandoned community. In our digital world where judgement is swiftly meted out by anyone with a phone, it helps to try and understand how some people have to struggle through every day of their lives.

Comments

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