I can see how some readers will go gaga over this book. Those who believe literary fiction serves its purpose best if it delves into the dreary side of human existence might love this story. But it simply wasn’t my cup of tea. Young Mungo is a heartbreaking tale and tender love story of a sensitive teenager, brutalised by his origins and the society he lives in. Fifteen year old Mungo lives in poverty in a Glasgow housing scheme with his single mum and older sister Jodie. His father was killed on the streets in the ongoing violent and senseless warfare between protestant and catholic gangs. His mother was only a teenager herself when her first child, Mungo’s older brother Hamish was born, and unable to cope on her own with three youngsters took to the bottle to numb her pain. Never a good mother, she neglects Jodie and Mungo, leaving them alone for weeks at a time with no food in the house while she spends any money she has on alcohol and pursues her latest love interest. Despite all this Mungo loves her dearly, even though the more pragmatic Jodie tells him he should see her for what she is. In terms of geographical setting – both are in of course set in the author’s birth town of Glasgow (albeit "Shuggie Bain" more on the outskirts for much of its time and this having a second strand some way North).

What I thought was interesting was to discuss where the book is both similar to and different from “Shuggie Bain”. I'm also happy to say that despite the bleakness that permeates the novel, it's not without hope! I really loved the ending, and the moments that Mungo shares with his downstairs neighbor, a closeted gay man who is ridiculed by the community but whom Mungo comes to understand more deeply as the novel goes on. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain, is the winner of the 2020 Booker Prize. It won the Sue Kaufman award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Book of the Year, and the Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2021. It was also Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year. Shuggie Bain was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction, the Pen Hemingway Award, the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, The Rathbones Folio, the LA Times Art Seidenbaum Award, and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize. The English government had been frustrated with the growing power of the trade unions, tired of subsidizing Scotland to compete with cheaper foreign labour. He had said that it was catastrophic to put several generations of the same families out of work: men who had been bred to shape steel would be left to rust, whole communities that grew up around shipbuilding would have no paying jobs.”Anderson, Porter (14 December 2022). "Douglas Stuart's 'Young Mungo' Is on Scotland's Highland Book Prize Longlist". Publishing Perspectives. Archived from the original on 22 December 2022 . Retrieved 24 February 2023. Mungo is not Shuggie Bain, grown up, although Mungo’s mother is an alcoholic and they live in Glasgow. Mungo is the youngest of Maureen’s three kids, taller than both his violent older brother Hamish and his loving, caring sister, Jodie. He is also more appealingly attractive, the kind of lad that women want to mother.

Critics, armchair and otherwise, have not only been decrying ‘Young Mungo’ as ‘Shuggie Bain’ in a different cagoule, but are already lamenting the poor departed muse of author Douglas Stuart, who seems perpetually fixated on Glasgow. Shuggie Bain could just as well have been named after Shuggie’s impossible, charismatic, alcoholic mother, Agnes. Stuart’s unvarnished portrait of her gin-soaked neglect was certainly not forgiving. What distinguished the book from your average misery memoir was the richness and detail of the ­picture Stuart painted of working-class Glasgow in the 1980s, a world of pawnshops, AA meetings and giro queues. No one was altogether to blame, no one altogether exempt from responsibility. When I read Shuggie Bain I at least thought that there was an attempt at something in the storytelling...Charles, Ron (5 April 2022). " 'Young Mungo' seals it: Douglas Stuart is a genius". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 27 November 2022 . Retrieved 24 February 2023. Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation. They should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all, and yet they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the doocot that James has built for his prize racing pigeons. As they begin to fall in love, they dream of escaping the grey city, and Mungo must work hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his elder brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. My mother and my brother would still be alive. So much of my life has been coping with the grief of losing them.

Religion plays a role in both with interestingly mothers that seem far less concerned at crossing the religious divide than those around them.Boasting Stuart's masterful storytelling and characterisation, Young Mungo follows Protestant Mungo and Catholic James as they tentatively fall in love amid the brutal landscape of sectarian divide, family dysfunction and the ever-present danger of living an authentic life. The fear of discovery is constant and Mungo and James dream of escaping the grey city, especially from Mungo's elder brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. Danish: Unge Mungo. Translated by Signe Lyng. Copenhagen: Politiken. 30 August 2022. ISBN 9788740078916. Young Mungo is a 2022 novel by Scottish-American writer Douglas Stuart. It was published by Grove Press on 5 April 2022 and by Picador on 14 April 2022. The novel follows Mungo Hamilton, a teenager navigating a life of poverty and parental neglect in the early 1990s Glasgow. When the character falls in love with a boy named James, he must confront the homophobia, toxic masculinity and religious conflicts of the society of his time. It is Stuart's second novel, following his Booker Prize-winning debut Shuggie Bain (2020). The novel was critically acclaimed and was chosen as one of the best books of the year by publications such as The Washington Post, Time, Reader's Digest, The Telegraph and Vanity Fair. But the largest similarity of all is that this is another superbly and clearly patiently crafted piece of writing, with deeply rounded characters, a vivid use of language and many striking and original similes (as well as some subtle use of metaphor). And as a result one which is both engrossing ( I found myself thorough immersed in Mungo’s story just like Shuggie’s, and actually missed the book each time I was away from it) and hugely affecting (with its mix of light and dark). I didn’t mind visiting Google. It was part of the pleasure. Besides, I already knew the Scottish talk funny…..with euphemisms being - both -charming and offensive.

The man was trembling slightly. Years spent hiding from daylight in dark pubs had given him the nervous reactions of a whippet pushed out into the snow, and he had the small darting eyes and long twitching limbs of a mistreated dog." Nothing he did seemed to make her happy. He had been worrying her heart lately, which he knew because she had told him so. He had tried not to laugh when she had said it, but all he could picture was her heart walking around the living room in her chest and folding a white hanky in agitation.” Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates, where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation. They congregated in groups of four or five and shared their news. Mungo couldn’t hear what they were saying but he appreciated the way they laid their hands on each other’ arms, and when they spoke, he liked how everyone listened and seemed to feel it deeply in their own bones. He eventually meets the ‘owner’, James. He’s a quiet lad who lives across from Mungo’s part of the scheme (housing scheme) and traps and raises pigeons. I never knew about these towers, cobbled together from scrap tin and timber to house pigeons. No planning regulations, apparently.

Jodie felt the floor tilt underneath her. Like a gable end slated for demolition, the front facade of her fell away and the private contents of her life rolled out. She was being torn down, and every mismatched bed sheet in her mind was to be exposed for all to see." Nicola Sturgeon, former First Minister of Scotland Few novels are as gutsy and gut-wrenching as Young Mungo in its depiction of a teenage boy who finds love amid family dysfunction, community conflict and the truly terrible predations of adults. Vividly realised and emotionally intense, this scorching novel is an urgent addition to the new canon of unsung stories. Dinnae worry, grinned Gallowgate. We’ll get you away free that scheme. We’ll have a proper boy’s weekend.