Just finished Young Mungo by Douglass Stuart and I’m just blown away,, I have lost all ability to form coherent thoughts but one thing I will say is that I’m mad that its described as a Romeo and Juliet like story. Obviously the Protestant/Catholic conflict is a major part of the story but its also so much more than that? Its an incredibly family oriented Queer coming of age story about a young gay boy finding himself in the violently homophobic world. Its about violence, bigotry, the working class and how 80s and 90s British politics destroyed generations of working class families, and most of all its about a young boy who’s been ostracized from society for his differences, and forcefully molled by his family to be whatever they need from him, choosing for himself who he is. Its Just so Much and if it becomes “Romeo & Juliet but gay” I will strangle someone and I will not be sorry.

The first 6 months of 2023 in books

birthday stuffs

i got a new phone case, 8 books in total (a few from a few people), and my friend drew the illustrations and included quotes on the back (circle one is from when she asked what my favorite quote was :)).

New Year Book Haul

I’ve been largely inactive since September, but I’m officially back with a New Year book haul, alternatively titled All the books I amassed during my absence.

Pictured from top to bottom: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram, Husband Material by Alexis Hall, The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas, A Restless Truth by Freya Marske, Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart, My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell, Babel by R.F. Kuang, Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell

Flames are not just the end, they are also the beginning. For everything that you have destroyed can be rebuilt. From your own ashes you can grow again.

Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

picked up shuggie bain in my local charity bookshop, been wanting to read this since it came out. whew, this one hits hard– it’s unflinching on alcoholism, poverty, trauma and abuse. some of the scenes are horrifying, and knowing that it’s heavily informed by stuart’s own experience makes it even more upsetting. that said it was extremely well-written, it rattled along and I couldn’t put it down, really recommend it

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart is a rich, raw story of a mother's alcoholism and the way it impacts her children and her life. Agnes Bain is struggling. A proud woman abandoned by her husband in a grimy public housing set-up outside Glasgow, she spends the family's weekly benefits on lager and vodka, subjected to blackouts and the sharp, jagged cruelty of men. Nevertheless, she treasures her youngest, little Shuggie, who grows up too fast, queer and used to pain.

It takes a truly well-written book to cause such absolute heart-sinking heartbreak as some of the turning points in this novel do. Agnes struggles to keep herself upright, trying to fight out of her circumstances and her addiction for her children. Meanwhile the children—teenage Link and Catherine and baby Shuggie—grow up learning to sense her rhythms, her anger or despair, learn the tricks to stay alive in a house where money bleeds into alcohol fumes. I usually shy away from books on subjects I feel like I've read before, particularly literary fiction that promises to be heavy with grime and pain. But this book manages to do it all with sparks of happiness and sympathy that make it painfully hopeful to keep reading, and keep it from being simply a mire of heartbreak. Incredible for a debut novel.

Content warnings for domestic abuse, sexual assault/rape, alcoholism, homophobia, r-slur, emotional abuse.

This is such an insane excuse to give for simply not liking someone's boyfriend

My 2022 in books

With my kids a little older and a lot more into their own stuff, I have had a good run. These are all the books I read for the first time this year in reverse order (I've not yet finished with The Time Traveller's Wife):

The books I enjoyed most in 2022:

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue A hotpot of motherhood, abuse and atonement - in which science comes head to head with faith and both succeeds and fails. I was impressed by the way the story gives weight to every consideration - Anna's autonomy, Ireland's suffering, the duties and limits of love. Outstanding.

Normal People by Sally Rooney I came to this having loved the TV version, and I wasn't disappointed. A very raw, and very true, portrait of what it is like to live and love, and how that differs from what we're told to expect.

Precious Bane by Mary Webb I'd been planning to read some Mary Webb for some time, but it was never top of my reading pile. Then I read a biography that reignited my interest, when I found she once occupied a house about 100 yards from my back door, and I found an old cloth copy which I liked the feel of more than the paperback I'd already bought. I thought I knew what I was getting from Precious Bane - everyone knows that the heroine has a cleft lip which she feels sets her apart in solitude, and that the book abounds with rustic scenes, homilies and events, and that there will be a handsome man who will choose her. I'd read Cold Comfort Farm the year before, and so in some sense had already laughed at Precious Bane before opening it. I was not expecting it to be littered with events that were genuinely shocking and dramatic, or to be convinced by the romantic ending, but I was. I really felt it managed to transcend the fun that is poked at it.

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith I've been totally absorbed by Strike for nearly two years now. A lot of people didn't rate IBH but it arrives and takes its place in my top five with flick of its strawberry-blond mane. I was expecting another book like Troubled Blood - meaty, satisfying, layered ... I am back to hotpots again (must be the weather) but I spent the whole week I managed to stretch this over on the edge of my seat; disturbed and fascinated, wanting to be drawn in and pampered the way I had been with TB, but constantly having the rug pulled from under me. I will never forgive her for killing the sofa.    

Shuggie Bane by Douglas Stuart It's a rare skill to keep your reader wanting a happy ending long after it's clearly hopeless and yet make them unable to abandon the story. Douglas Stuart has that skill. He's a dangerous man and should be on a list somewhere.

A few other things:

My least favourite book was Worst. Idea. Ever. by Jane Fallon. I just can't ... I don't get it. Please. Someone. Explain.

My favourite audiobook this year was The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex. I'd never listened to an audiobook before and, to put it mildly, this was a good start. I also listened to all the Strike novels 1-6, Anna Karenina, War and Peace, The Count of Monte Cristo, Dracula, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and The Iliad. I go for the classics in a big way because 1. they are free, and 2. they go well with the ironing.

If I could only have had one of these reading experiences, it would have to be The Ink Black Heart. 

Tell me what u think about ' shuggie bain ' ?

The Aftermath Dislocation Principle part 3: The Bridge, by Jimmy Cauty, a 1:87 scale dystopian cityscape.

Podcast: A Life In Miniatures

'People become writers for myriad reasons - novelist Max Porter suspects that for him the crucial spur was his fascination with Bekonscot model village, which he visited scores of times as a child. It was there that he discovered the pleasure and value of people watching at a life-size and miniature scale.

In 'A Life In Miniatures' he returns to Bekonscot to celebrate not just the care, craft and love that have gone into its construction, but also the opportunity it affords to create complicated stories out of the various people and scenes on show. He interrogates whether these places are necessarily escapist and reactionary or offer a more radical opportunity to critique society.

He visits Jimmy Cauty of KLF fame to hear about the dystopian model village he has toured around the world in a shipping container and talks with Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain, about the miniature appearance of a miniature village that appears in that book. Max also speaks with academic Melinda Rabb about the rise of miniatures in 18th Century England - and how smart phones are keeping the tradition alive in various unexpected ways.

(17 May 2022, BBC Radio 4, 30 mins)

Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stuart

12.12.2022

The blurb speaks of moments of beauty, but man was this bleak! Wonderfully written, immersive, and completely despairing. All the characters are victims, and every glimpse of redemption is hopelessly dashed, but I respect Stuart being true to reality and not opting for a fairytale ending. 

By popular (i.e., @ben-learns-smth’s) request, here is the list of books from my latest poll.

From top to bottom:

Reread an old queer fantasy series: Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling

Queer semi-autobiographical fiction by a favorite francophone author: Un Certain Paul Darrigrand by Philippe Besson

Reread a favorite: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Queer literary fiction by a new-to-me author: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

Queer YA coming of age: Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

Science fiction novella: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Sapphic historical fantasy: She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

A collection of short stories: Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell

A queer historical fantasy novella: Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh (not pictured)

He had long perfected the art of staring through people, leaving conversations to follow his daydreams through the back of their heads and out any open window.

Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“Haven't we all burnt for another drink, burnt up with the fever, with the sweat and panic, our throats on fire, our hearts burning in our chests?” The crowd made an agreeing murmur. “Then you have it.” He made a satisfied ahhhhh sound. “That glorious petrol. Like petrol it fuels the demons in you, it burns you away to the very devil. You go up in flames, and everything you touch you destroy; everyone you love steps away. steps back from the fire. Money burns, families burn, careers burn, reputations burn, and then when it's all burnt, you still burn.”

Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

"Cheer up. I love you Mungo Hamilton."