Shuggie Bain - by Douglas Stuart (Paperback)

About the Book

The story of Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland, taking care of his beloved mother Agnes. Agnes is a proud, beautiful woman who turns herself out like her idol Elizabeth Taylor, but she is an alcoholic, and spends most of the family's weekly benefits money on alcohol. Shuggie is meanwhile doing all he can to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that Shuggie is "no right," and now Agnes's addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her, especially her beloved Shuggie.

Book Synopsis

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

A stunning debut novel by a masterful writer telling the heartwrenching story of a young boy and his alcoholic mother, whose love is only matched by her pride.

Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.

Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie's guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good-her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamorous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion's share of each week's benefits--all the family has to live on--on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs. Agnes's older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is "no right," a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her--even her beloved Shuggie.

A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Édouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell.

Review Quotes

Praise for Shuggie Bain:

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE
New York Times Bestseller
Winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction
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
Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction
Silver Medal for the BookTube Prize for Fiction
Named the Best Book of the Year at the British Book Awards 2021
Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize
The Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year 2020
Shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Breakthrough Author Award
Named a Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times, NPR, TIME, BuzzFeed, the Economist, the Times (UK), the Independent (UK), the Daily Telegraph (UK), Barnes & Noble, Kirkus Reviews, the New York Public Library, the Chicago Public Library, and the Washington Independent Review of Books

"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 marginalized, 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

"This year's breakout debut . . . It has drawn comparisons to D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and Frank McCourt." --Alexandra Alter, New York Times

"I'm really, really stunned by it. It's so good. I think it's the best first book I've read in many years . . . It's a heartbreaking story, and quite hard to read at times, but it's almost like it's uplifting on behalf of literature. And it's written with great warmth and compassion for the characters." --Karl Ove Knausgaard, Guardian

"The body--especially the body in pain--blazes on the pages of Shuggie Bain . . . This is the world of Shuggie Bain, a little boy growing up in Glasgow in the 1980s. And this is the world of Agnes Bain, his glamorous, calamitous mother, drinking herself ever so slowly to death. The wonder is how crazily, improbably alive it all is . . . 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--only damage. If he has a sharp eye for brokenness, he is even keener on the inextinguishable flicker of love that remains . . . The book leaves us gutted and marveling: Life may be short, but it takes forever." --Leah Hager Cohen, New York Times Book Review

"A debut novel that reads like a masterpiece." --Bethanne Patrick, Washington Post

"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"

"Agnes Bain [is] the unforgettable human train wreck at the center of Douglas Stuart's novel Shuggie Bain . . . Titling the novel after Shuggie rather

About the Author

Douglas Stuart is a New York Times bestselling author whose work has been translated into over forty languages. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain, won 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. It was named both the British Book of the Year, and Debut of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards, as well as being a finalist for over twenty other literary awards. His latest novel, Young Mungo, was an international bestseller and a finalist for the Carnegie Medal. His essays on gender, class, and conformity have featured on Literary Hub and his short stories are published in the New Yorker. He is currently working on adapting both of his novels for A24 pictures. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Stuart has a Masters from the Royal College of Art and since 2000, he has lived and worked in New York City.