Douglas Stuart's first novel Shuggie Bain, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, is one of the most successful literary debuts of the century so far. Published or forthcoming in forty territories, it has sold more than one million copies worldwide. Now Stuart returns with Young Mungo, his extraordinary second novel. Both a page-turner and literary tour de force, it is a vivid portrayal of working-class life and a deeply moving and highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men.
Growing up in a housing estate in Glasgow, Mungo and James are born under different stars-Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic-and they should be sworn enemies if they're to be seen as men at all. Yet against all odds, they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. As they fall in love, they dream of finding somewhere they belong, while Mungo works hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his big brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. And when several months later Mungo's mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in Western Scotland with two strange men whose drunken banter belies murky pasts, he will need to summon all his inner strength and courage to try to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future.
Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism and giving full voice to people rarely acknowledged in the literary world, Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the bounds of masculinity, the divisions of sectarianism, the violence faced by many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.
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As they neared the corner, Mungo halted and shrugged the man's hand from his shoulder. THE MAY AFTER - ONE
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(@groveatlantic, 14 April 2022, 400 pages, #ARC from the publisher via @ edelweiss_squad)
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I loved Shuggie Bain and was really looking forward to Young Mungo. I wasn't sure I'd like this at first, Mungo's alcoholic, neglectful mother and Mungo's life reminded me far too much of Shuggie Bain. It took a few chapters for the feeling to go away. Young Mungo does share a lot of themes and similarities to the other book. What makes this book different is it deals with the hatred between Protestant and Catholics which has been about since the dawn of time and Mungo's queer coming out story. There are some dark moments towards the end when Mungo's brother finds out he loves Catholic boy James and Mungo is sent on a camping trip with two of his mother's friends from AA, two men with dark intentions. I thought this was a terrific book.
