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 … 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 glamourous 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.
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If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would. It’s shot right up to the top of the list of best books I’ve read not only this year, but in my life. And that’s no small feat, since I have been a constant reader since my age was in the single digits. This debut novel, which deservingly won the Booker Prize and was shortlisted for the National Book Award, is a heartbreaking portrait of alcoholism and poverty in Scotland, centering around the tragic and beautiful Agnes and her son Shuggie, who loves her with a kind of hopeless ferocity anyone who has ever loved an addict or alcoholic will understand. Stuart brings to poignant light the Glasgow (and surrounding areas) with a palette of simple grays…startling in its clarity, breathtaking in its detail, and cutting in its truth. This is one of the rare books I will read again and again. It’s not a happy book and I shed many tears, but the artistry here is beautiful and a real testimony to the resiliency and kindness of the human spirit. Read it!
If you want a light-hearted story that will lift your heart and let you escape into fluff for a few hours, this is NOT the book for you. Shuggie Bain is pure heartache, from first page to last. It also might occasionally make you full of rage and frustration, as you are not sure which character deserves your wrath more.
Shuggie is a young Glaswegian boy growing up a sad, tired home in the 1980s with parents who hate yet want each other and an older brother and sister who adapt to their surroundings in very different ways. There is something up with Shuggie, and you very well may figure that out. He is molested at a young age, which no doubt triggers some of his issues.
Yet for most of the book, Shuggie is a bystander, a witness to the surrounding chaos. His alcoholic mother and feckless father’s fights feel almost too real, and the dissolution of his family will make you shudder. At various times I wanted to shout at every member of his family, save only his brother. His parents and sister choose themselves at great cost to the boys.
This is a story with no winners, just survivors. Shuggie’s attempts to figure out how to grow and find himself in the midst of such destructive emotional (and physical) upheaval will nearly crush you. You want to shelter him and help him, even as you understand his siblings’ need to protect themselves, too.
I listened to the audiobook, and Angus King’s narration is phenomenal. He interprets some of the emotions, but for the most part, he lets you decide for yourself how you feel about the Bains.
When I finished listening, I had to find a romcom to counter the sadness Shuggie’s life. Even the most optimistic reading will still make you feel almost hopeless. Yet every bit of this feels real; not one of Douglas Stuart’s words is contrived.
Some of the best fiction writing on alcoholism I’ve read in years.
Shuggie Bain is one of the saddest and most heartbreaking books I have ever read.
Set in Glasgow, it is the story of Agnes Bain and her children, centering on her youngest son, Shuggie. Agnes is beautiful, but she is an alcoholic. She gives herself freely to many men, hoping they will get her out of poverty. She keeps herself made-up, her hair done, and her home immaculate, but it is all a facade. Men use her and discard her. All of her children except Shuggie abandon her.
Shuggie, her youngest son, born when on her second marriage, tries his best throughout his young life, to care for his mother, but she uses him over and over to buy her alcohol.
Shuggie is effeminate, is abused by older men, and is teased unmercifully by other children.
This novel paints a bleak picture of poverty and alcoholism in Glasgow in the 1980s/90s. So sad, hauntingly beautiful writing.
I Loved it!
So depressing I didn’t finish it. Well written and immersive but where you are being immersed is likely to drown you. There is no hope in this book. At least there was none as far as i got.
Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain is the story of a young boy in Glasgow, Scotland. Abandoned by his violent father, neglected by his alcoholic mother, and taunted as “no right” by his peers, young Shuggie is forced to confront the awful question: When (if ever?) is it time to walk away from a beloved family member who will not give up the drink? The story offers little consolation, but it gives the reader an understanding of something that might otherwise seem incomprehensible. And in the end, we perceive that Shuggie will be alright. Life goes on.
If you loved Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and Jeannette Walls’s Glass Castle, you’ll love Booker Prize winning Shuggie Bain.
It shows how children many times must take care of their parents. It does happen in any country at any time. There was too much repetition, and the same story could have been told in fewer pages, The more pages seemed to become depressing to the reader.
“Shuggie Bain” is searing and beautiful. It captures humanity and this particular society in Glasgow with so much complexity and heart. The depth and generosity of its human portrayals (even when the characters’ addictions cause them to behave abhorrently) reminded me of the work of Lucia Berlin.
Very dark and at points disgusting but also very well-written and immersive. My only criticism is that I found the book too long for the story it had to tell.
In 1981 Shuggie is a 5-year-old stuck in a small Glaswegian flat with his parents, grandparents, and 2 siblings. At that moment is mother is still a functioning alcoholic. When they move out to a small mining community outside the city, his dad leaves them and his mother’s drinking gets worse and worse. His oldest sister moves out as soon as she can marry and moves away to South-Africa. His older brother, a gifted artist, disengages but still tries his best. Shuggie is an odd child, unlike all the other boys. Something, that’s repeatedly beaten into him by his peers. He’s a mummy’s boy but also plays with a doll and my little ponies. At age 7, he already takes himself to school and looks after his mum’s drunken stupor. Sometimes things seem to get better, but the comedown hits always worse than before.
Some of my GR friends posted such praising reviews that I had to read this myself. I was not mistaken, this book is brilliant. In all its sadness and tragedy, this is a beautiful story. It’s about the never-ending hope of a little boy and the love for his mother no matter what she does.
It is also a chilling portrait of the very recent social history of which many people have absolutely no idea. I do recognise many of the problems people had with poverty from my own stays in London at the time (area of 7 sisters) such as the money fuelled meters. I had never seen such things in Belgium then but we do have them now. They don’t work on cash though; you must go to an official point and charge your plastic card. I guess they got wise about that. Another feat that I observed was the habit of sharing your pack of cigarettes around when you had one. As I took the ferry every few months, I was blessed in that way. Over here the cigarettes were still a lot cheaper then so that everybody would have their own packs at all times.
The author paints a chilling, detailed portrait of the city, the tenements, the Pithead community, the noises and silences, all sorts of environments and circumstances to the cracks in the pavement and the prevalent cabbage smells. You can close your eyes and see it all before you, no detail spared.
Where I could feel sorry for Agnes because she was dealt an unfair card, her own parents are both drinkers and she doesn’t seem to have much luck. But she’s also to blame for a lot of the problems she created. I don’t mean that she just should have stopped drinking; that’s easier said than done and the AA is certainly not for everyone. The choices she makes and the attitude she has, make it a lot harder for her than should have been.
But for Shuggie, my heart bleeds. He’s such an awkward boy, different from all those around him but with so much love inside him. The manner, in which he practises to be a normal boy, brings tears to your eyes.
As a foreigner, I’m not an ideal judge of accents, but I could hear the voices when I read the rendering of Glaswegian dialect. It is the first book where I wonder how the audiobook would sound. I also learned a few new expressions as ‘flytipper’ and ‘wean’
I thank Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the free ARC they provided and this is my honest, unbiased review of it.
Not an easy subject, but compelling and well written.
This is a beautifully written book, dripping with authenticity, that captures a moment and pace in time so artfully, it’s hard to find the superlatives. A view of Scotland that’s both heartbreaking and captivating, one teenager’s story creates social commentary for the ages.
Shuggie Bain is outstanding. I enjoyed it in audio form, read by Angus King, whose Glasgow accents add a rich layer of enjoyment to this tender tale of an alcoholic mother and her devoted youngest son, Shuggie, whose effeminate mannerisms make him the target of bullies in their rough, low-income housing project. The writing is vivid, loaded with similies and metaphors that in the hands of a lesser author might be cringe-worthy. Douglas Stuart makes every description work and brings humor to a potentially depressing memoir-like novel.
Are you looking for a feel good book to close out your year? If so, keep looking because this ain’t it!
What this is though is a devastating portrait of a young gay boy and his relationship with his alcoholic mother in 1980’s Scotland. Beautifully written and heartbreaking.
Heart-rending tale of devotion & survival despite the odds
4.5stars
This story of lost hope, alcoholism, and poverty in working class Glasgow is not an easy read. Author Douglas Stuart draws a depressing picture of the lives of young Shuggie, his beautiful but ruined mother, extended family and neighbors in economically depressed 1980’s Glasgow. Poor Shuggie is persecuted because he does not fit in and he devotes his childhood and adolescence to protecting his beloved mother from her drinking. When others abandon her as a lost cause, Shuggie remains.
While his mother draws all of the attention with her destructive behavior, for me, it was the need to see Shuggie through his torment and out the other side that kept me reading when the bullying and exploitation got too heavy. And the family’s happy and contented times when Mrs. Bain stops drinking and joins AA makes her relapse all the more crushing. Her enablers are all too eager to tempt her back to a life that crushes all hope from her sons. It’s heartbreaking.
Neither easy to read nor to forget, Shuggie Bain may be a story that is too depressing for some but it’s a modern tragedy that resonated with me. Shuggie is a pure hero whose devotion and loyalty to his mother, no matter her faults, really moved me.
Thanks to publishers Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for providing a complimentary copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest review.
Fantastic to see a novel set in Glasgow winning this year’s Booker Prize. There seems be so much more literature about picturesque Edinburgh – from Trainspotting to Ian Rankin’s wonderful tales of intrigue. Good to see gritty Glasgow getting its turn. Well done to author, Douglas Stuart.
Such a great read. Shuggie and Agnes will stick with you well after reading this Epic historical (80’s early 90’s) novel. Set in Scotland in their version of public housing, the story explores a young woman and her relationship with men, booze, and her children. Its a heartbreaking story of how addiction can fuck up everything about a great person and the people cloeset to that have to pick up the pieces. Shuggie is Agnes’s son and compared to the lads and area he is from, he is just a bit different. Shuggie likes to sing Whitney Houston and dance flamboyantly to Michael Jackson. He helps (at such a tender young age) protect his alcoholic mothers dignity all the while trying to come to grips with his own differences with other boys/men his age. Without spoiling anything about this gem of a novel, you will laugh and most certainly cry, Shuggie Bain is in my top 3 for 2020