BOOK REVIEW

BILL MCCARTHY Major Literary prize winners normally raise a red flag for me. Probably excellent use of language but boring or inscrutable stories. This one is a real downer. A story about an alcoholic mother, a mostly absent and violent philandering husband with two sons, the youngest a boy of uncertain sexuality set in the dystopian slums of Glasgow in the 1980s.

The destructive love of the mother for her youngest set against the fierce protective love he has for her is at times moving. Contrary to the reviews on the cover, I did not find it compassionate or miraculous and struggled to finish, skipping long desolate descriptions of the downward spiral of their lives. MARY BARBER I found this book quite bleak at first, but the characters grow on you. Young Shuggie Bain pulls you into the story. I wanted things to turn out well for him. His mother is a desperate alcoholic who is always making promises she cannot fulfil. Shuggie is mature beyond his years. He keeps her as safe as he can, often skipping school. This book deals with alcoholism as a disease and the fallout for the family. There are plenty of drinking companions to pull Shuggie’s mother back into the beer and other beverages anytime she tries to break free. Does the book have a happy ending? You will have to read it to find out.

SUZI HIRST Shuggie Bain has been one of the most heartwrenching books I have read in a long while and left me feeling quite depressed. The strength of the writing leaves little to the imagination and puts you very much in the lives of these working class families dealing with addiction, alcoholism, poverty and the day to day struggles of a young child and his love for his alcoholic mother.

I was equally sorry for Shuggie and his mother Agnes and the relationship the two of them share is at times heartbreaking.

His belief that he could make her better and his constant care for her no matter how drunk, filled me with a deep sadness. Not an easy read.

SHUGGIE BAIN SHUGGIEBAIN by Douglas Stuart

Hugh “Shuggie” Bain is a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. His mother Agnes walks a wayward path. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good but under the surface, she finds increasing solace in drink, and drains away each week’s benefits – all the family has to live on.

Her older children find their own ways to keep a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her. Meanwhile he is struggling to become the normal boy he desperately longs to be.

A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a workingclass family and winner of the 2020 Booker Prize.

TONY HARRINGTON This is the story of Shuggie “he no right” Bain growing up in Glasgow as a young gay boy in a depressingly immersive environment of poverty, machoism, domestic violence and skid row alcoholism. Set during Margaret Thatcher’s prime ministership, the economic gains of the 1980s came at great social cost to the people of Clydeside.

Stuart’s childhood’s experience, knowledge and insightful descriptions are nothing short of brilliant. For work and recreation I visited the Glasgow Royal Infirmary ED several times during the 1980s where the ED was treating up to half dozen stab wounds to the heart each night. Alcoholism and violence prevailed.

The adjacent building where Joseph Lister did his work on surgical disinfection had to be closed down because it was so filthy. This tale reignited my memories of a dirty, dark and depressingly grey city. Shuggie’s love for his alcoholic mother is the only light in this mire of human misery and tragedy. 8/10

JOHN KLEINSCHMIDT Shuggie Bain is not an easy read. It is at times a brutal journey into the lives of its flawed characters, struggling to survive the agonies of a Scotland riven by recession and unemployment in the 1980s. Shuggie is growing up surrounded by intolerant men, a mother drowning under the weight of alcohol addiction and everyone desperate for food, love and affection. One critic suggests that “readers need to be in a good headspace before embarking upon the emotional journey that is Shuggie Bain”. It is a depressing book with few fun moments and no fairytale ending. I was frequently tempted to put the book down. JO BOURKE An unforgettable and astounding novel with autographical shades from the writer’s own family trials. By the first 50 pages the bombardment of lechery, bullying and alcoholism all under the dark depressing Glasgow weather had me moving fast to put the book aside and sit outside to drink in our Aussie’s sun’s warmth and clear blue skies. Not for long though, as the talent of the writer called me back to his skilful development of the story and an insight into Glaswegian life at that time. The main characters will stay vividly in my memory for a long time.

Yes, it is a bleak story and won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Very little joy or hope in this story, rather just resignation that “it is what it is” – and luring the reader into the same conclusion of pessimism.

Strongly recommended for those who are game enough to read it (given the reviews) and are prepared to have other books pale into mediocrity afterwards.

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