John of John - by Douglas Stuart (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From the Booker-winning author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo comes a vivid, moving, and beautifully crafted novel following a young man returning to his Hebridean island home, a portrait of a close-knit community and a fraying family, of a father's expectations and a son's desires

Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the island of Harris to find that little has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal begrudgingly resumes his old life, stuck between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, tweed weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his maternal grandmother Ella, a profanity-loving Glaswegian who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for several decades. Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, while John is dismayed by his son's long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As lambing season turns to shearing season, everything seems poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly knotted.

John of John is a singular novel about duty and patience and the transformative power of the truth. It is a magnificent literary work that shows Douglas Stuart working at an even higher level of artistic creation.

Review Quotes

Awards and Praise for Douglas Stuart:

Shuggie Bain

Winner of the Booker Prize - Winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction - A New York Times bestseller - Finalist for the National Book Award - Finalist for the Kirkus Prize - Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize - Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel - Finalist for the L.A. Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction - Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

Young Mungo

Finalist for the British Book Award - Shortlisted for Scotland's National Book Award - Shortlisted for the Polari Book Prize - A national bestseller - Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence - Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award - Longlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award - A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

"Young Mungo seals it: Douglas Stuart is a genius . . . He's capable of pulling the strings of suspense excruciatingly tight while still sensitively exploring the confused mind of this gentle adolescent trying to make sense of his sexuality"--Ron Charles, Washington Post

"We were bowled over by this first novel, which creates an amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love. The book gives a vivid glimpse of a marginalised, impoverished community in a bygone era of British history. It's a desperately sad, almost-hopeful examination of family and the destructive powers of desire."--Booker Prize Judges, on Shuggie Bain

"The crafted storylines in Young Mungo develop with purpose and converge explosively, couching all the horror and pathos within a tighter, more gripping reading experience--an impressive advancement, in other words, from an already accomplished author."--Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

"The tough portraits of Glaswegian working-class life from William McIlvanney, James Kelman, Alasdair Gray, and Agnes Owens can be felt in Shuggie Bain. . . This overwhelmingly vivid novel is not just an accomplished debut. It also feels like a moving act of filial reverence."--James Walton, New York Review of Books

"The body--especially the body in pain--blazes on the pages of Shuggie Bain. . .The book would be just about unbearable were it not for the author's astonishing capacity for love. He's lovely, Douglas Stuart, fierce and loving and lovely. He shows us lots of monstrous behavior, but not a single monster. . . The book leaves us gutted and marveling: Life may be short, but it takes forever."--Leah Hager Cohen, New York Times Book Review

"[A] bear hug of a new novel . . . Stuart oozes story. Mungo is alive. There is feeling under every word . . . This novel cuts you and then bandages you back up."--Hillary Kelly, Los Angeles Times, on Young Mungo

"Shuggie Bain is a novel that cracks open the human heart, brings you inside, tears you up, and brings you up, with its episodes of unvarnished love, loss, survival and sorrow."--Scott Simon, NPR's "Weekend Edition"

"Stuart, with great subtlety, builds up an aura of tenderness in the relationship between helpless Shuggie and his even more helpless mother . . . By drawing Agnes and Shuggie with so much texture, he makes clear that neither mother nor son can be easily seen as a victim. Instead, they emerge forcefully; they are fully, palpably present."--Colm Tóibín, Bookforum, on Shuggie Bain

About the Author

Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American author. His New York Times-bestselling debut novel Shuggie Bain won prizes including the 2020 Booker Prize and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Hemingway Award, among many others. His latest novel, Young Mungo, was a national bestseller, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal and a finalist for the British Book Award, and one of the most highly acclaimed books of the year. His stories are published in the New Yorker and his essays have featured on Literary Hub.