A heart-wrenchingly moving first novel set in Glasgow during the Thatcher years, Shuggie Bain tells the story of a boy's doomed attempt to save his proud, alcoholic mother from her addiction.
Douglas Stuart was born and raised in Glasgow. After graduating from the Royal College of Art, he moved to New York, where he began a career in design. Shuggie Bain is his debut novel. It has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Kirkus Prize and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. It has also been longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction. His short stories have appeared in the New Yorker and his essay on Gender, Anxiety and Class was published by Lit Hub.
A heartbreaking novel, a book both beautiful and brutal . . . All
that grief and sadness and misery has been turned into something
tough, tender and beautifully sad.
*The Times*
Leaves us gutted and marvelling: Life may be short, but it takes
forever.
*New York Times*
I think it’s the best first book I’ve read in many years.
*Guardian*
Rarely does a debut novel establish its world with such
sure-footedness, and Stuart’s prose is lithe, lyrical and full of
revelatory descriptive insights.
*Observer*
An astonishing portrait, drawn from life, of a society left to die
. . . Shuggie Bain has been longlisted for the Booker Prize. In a
just world, it would win.
*Daily Telegraph*
Shuggie Bain comes from a deep understanding of the relationship
between a child and a substance-abusing parent, showing a world
rarely portrayed in literary fiction . . . Admirable and
important.
*Guardian*
This is a dysfunctional love story . . . between a boy and his
mother . . . what makes his book a worthy contender for the Booker
is his portrayal of their bond, together with all its perpetual
damage.
*Financial Times*
Douglas Stuart’s startling Glasgow-set debut novel creates a world
of poverty and suffering offset by pure, heart-filling, love . . .
It’s a novel that deserves, and will surely often get, a second
reading.
*Scotsman*
Shuggie Bain is a novel that aims for the heart and finds it.
*The Times*
Tender and unsentimental . . . and the Billy Elliot-ish character
of Shuggie . . . leaps off the page.
*Daily Mail*
Beautiful and bleak but with enough warmth and optimism to carry
the reader through.
*Graham Norton (via Twitter)*
A boy's heartbreaking love for his mother . . . as intense and
excruciating to read as any novel I have ever held in my hand . . .
The book’s evocative power arises out of the author’s talent for
conjuring a place, a time, and the texture of emotion . . .
brilliantly written.
*Newsday*
An outstanding book . . . Magnificently done . . . Wonderful.
*Sunday Post*
A debut novel that reads like a masterpiece, Shuggie Bain gives
voice to the kind of helpless, hopeless love that children can feel
toward broken parents.
*Washington Post*
This heartfelt and harrowing debut novel – which has been compared
to the work of Édouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara,
and which Kirkus has already called “a masterpiece” . . . is
rightly being heralded for its visceral, emotionally nuanced
portrayal of working class Scottish life and its blazingly intimate
exploration of a mother-son relationship.
*LitHub*
A formidable story, lyrically told, about intimacy, family, and
love.
*ELLE (US)*
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… 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.
*Kirkus Reviews starred review*
A rare and haunting ode to 1980s Glasgow and its struggling
communities, Shuggie Bain tells the story of a collapsing family
that is lashed together by love alone. Douglas Stuart writes with
startling, searing intimacy. I fell hard for these characters; when
they have nothing left, they cling maddeningly—irresistibly—to
humor, pride and hope
*Chia-Chia Lin*
Shuggie Bain is an intimate and frighteningly acute exploration of
a mother-son relationship and a masterful portrait of alcoholism in
Scottish working class life, rendered with old-school lyrical
realism . . . I kept being reminded of Joyce's Dubliners.
*Sandra Newman, author of The Heavens*
There’s no way to fake the life experience that forms the bedrock
of Douglas Stuart’s wonderful Shuggie Bain. No way to fake the
talent either. Shuggie will knock you sideways
*Richard Russo*
A dark shining work. Raw, formidable, bursting with tenderness and
frailty. The effect is remarkable, it will make you cry.
*Karl Geary, author of Montpelier Parade*
Every now and then a novel comes along that feels necessary and
inevitable. I’ll never forget Shuggie and Agnes or the incredibly
detailed Glasgow they inhabit. This is the rare contemporary novel
that reads like an instant classic. I’ll be thinking and talking
about Shuggie Bain - and teaching it - for quite some time.
*Garrard Conley, New York Times-bestselling author of Boy
Erased*
Glasgow, Scotland, in the 1980s is the backdrop for this story of
the fraught bond between a young boy and his mother.
*Vogue (US)*
Compulsively readable… As [the novel] beautifully and shockingly
illustrates how Shuggie ends up alone, this novel offers a
testament to the indomitable human spirit. Very highly
recommended
*Library Journal starred review*
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