What an unforgettable book! What an unforgettable character!
Shuggie Bain is a lonely, young boy who we watch grow up in Glasgow in the 1980's. His mother, Agnes, is an alcoholic, an addiction which renders her so severely hindered facing life. People he know can be so cruel to the extent that only his suffering and hurt will make them happy. Yet, above all, Stuart brilliantly portrays Shuggie to remain untainted and courageous.
The book is dark and describes addiction so realistically. The writing is memorable as is Shuggie. The descriptions of Glasgow, in all its decadence left me viscerally feeling that unsavoriness. What talent Stuart exhibits.!

A well written description of life in a mining community in Glasgow in the early eighties. A bleak story of poverty, hardship and the struggle for survival where there is a belief amongst the community that it is every man for himself. An authentic reflection of the people and culture, the increasingly high levels of unemployment and commonplace descent into alcoholism and drug dependence. The heartbreaking story of a single parent and her three children experiencing the. gradual fracture of family life with little or no help or assistance from the many public bodies paid to provide life support to ailing and destitute communities . A difficult to read if beautifully written book about unrelenting hardships experienced by young children within our lifetime under the auspices of a government and welfare system that failed the most vulnerable in society catastrophically escalating and widening the gap between the haves and have nots. Many thanks to publisher and NetGalley for ARC.

Set in 1980s Glasgow, this tells the moving story of Shuggy, a boy growing up with an alcoholic mother. His estranged father whisks him to a mining village on the edge of town, promptly leaving the family for another woman. The mining community then declares Shuggy is “no right” when he treasures his doll, Daphne, and plays with his mother’s figurines.

The rich dialogue and descriptions are mesmerizing, but it’s Shuggy’s journey that made this book for me. It’s essentially a Bildungsroman along the lines of Great Expectations. Heartbreaking, funny and electrifying, this book was a worthy Booker Prize winner.

This was a really well written book, that was the problem. It was so raw and had such hard subjects, and the writing was so good that it really came to life. But it was a really dark place to be living, which made it a really hard read to get through.

5★
“The doormen always saw her gleaming at the back of the line and beckoned her forward, and she pulled the other girls behind her like a chain gang. They held on to the belt of her coat and muttered protest, but Agnes just smiled her best smile for the doormen, the smile she kept for men, the same one she hid from her mother.”

Shuggie Bain’s mum. Agnes was a beautiful child who was adored and spoiled by her father, from whom she learned how to get anything she wanted. She loved clothes, make-up, and accessories. Nothing is ever enough, and nothing changes – not her circumstances, her neediness, her desire for more.

So, she marries a kind Catholic man who gives her everything, just like her father did, and now she has two kids. But she’s bored. And drinking.

She meets night-shift taxi driver Shug Bain (Big Shug) “. . . commanding, magnetic. There was a directness to his gaze that did something funny to Agnes. She had once told her mother that when she met Shug he had a gleam in his eye that would make you take your clothes off if only he asked. Then she had said that he asked this a lot. . . . He had the Glasgow patter.”

I kept expecting little Shuggie to feature. We do meet him when the book opens, when he’s almost 16, living alone in a boarding house where there are some dodgy old men. Life is lousy as he tries to go to school and work part-time, underage and underpaid. He tries his best to keep his things neat, tidy, and clean. It’s appalling and I wanted to know how he got here.

Well, the author sure answered that question. The first half or more of the book is Agnes, Shug Bain, and the desperate situation for families in Glasgow. After she leaves her Catholic husband to marry Shug, she gets the “poor me’s” again, just wants and wants. Shug tries, but she knows his driving at night gives him plenty of scope to play around in the dark.

She wants her own front door. Shug finds a house in a housing scheme, and the move is on.

“They were the plainest, unhappiest-looking homes Agnes had ever seen. The windows were big but thin-looking, letting the heat out and letting the chill in. Up and down the street, black puffs of coal smoke came out of chimneys, the houses were incurably cold even on a mild summer’s day.”

Welcome to Pithead, the pit being the closed mine and the residents now mostly retrenched miners.

“It’s no like there are any new jobs coming here. Disability is the only club we’ve got, and Monday is club day.”

But she has a front door. She and Shug also have Shuggie (Hugh), who’s still a little boy, so there are three weans (Scottish for wee ones). The word that keeps coming to my mind for Shuggie is earnest. He adores his mum just as her father adored her. He tries so hard to please.

Catherine is an older, wiser sister, while Leek is older but secretive. He draws and listens to his music and tries to help Shuggie behave like a normal boy. Shuggie has a polite manner of speech and seems poncy to the other kids. At one point, on a stinking hot day, Agnes fills an upturned fridge in the yard with water for him to have a cool soak.

“Without any negotiation she slipped the black jumper over his head and pulled his trousers down. ‘Underpants or no underpants?’ she asked. ‘Underpants, obviously,’ he tutted and folded his arms. ‘We’re not all in Africa.’ The inside of the fridge was full to the top with cool, running water.”

He tutted and folded his arms. I can see him now.

The neighbours, the drinking, the bullying of gentle Shuggie, who loves to play with girls’ toys and brush hair – it all adds up to the clearest picture imaginable of Shuggie’s life. Agnes, even drunk, keeps a spotless house (often no food, but clean) and does her hair and make-up. She dresses up to walk down the road to the shop, unlike the slatternly neighbours. She still turns the men's heads and takes great advantage of that.

“They were watching as she came out the gate, standing in clusters with bean sauce down their jumpers and weans wrapped around their stretchy leggings.”

I knew this had won the 2020 Booker Prize and I’d heard the author say that Agnes wasn’t his mother, but he certainly knew Agnes well. I’m sure he must have said to himself what Shuggie did, wishing his mother would give up the drink and waiting for her to get better, which he was so certain she could.

“Shuggie watched her and said under his breath, ‘Why can’t I be enough?’ But she wasn’t listening.”

It is a wonderful book. It is full of interesting people, some very kind and caring ones who try their best, as Shuggie does. I was pleased to read this in the author’s acknowledgements.

“Above all, I owe everything to the memories of my mother and her struggle, and to my brother who gave me everything he could. I am indebted to my sister for encouraging me to set this into words and share it with you.”

Thanks to his sister from me, too. And thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the review copy.

There's a review with him here that I enjoyed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/books/douglas-stuart-shuggie-bain.html

A gritty, tough read. Shuggie's story will break your heart. His mother's constant struggle to improve her life and her continual missteps elicit pain and heartache. Through all of the hardships hope remains.

This book is as good as they say.

I could hardly believe I was going to actually enjoy a novel that won the Booker Prize because I doubted in my own ability as a reader to understand distinguished literature. However, this was not the case; even though I'm a "normal" reader without an English degree, I truly fell in love with the characters, the writing and the story. It was gripping, emotional and simply stunning.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is an incredibly challenging and tough read about the bond between mother and son and the destruction of alcoholism. Shuggie Bain will become a character that is long remembered in literature. Shuggie’s need to care for his mother throughout her highs and lows shines through - as she battles with relationships and the grip of alcohol, Shuggie fights to retain his mother’s dignity. Shuggie is also trying to make sense of who he is within a society/ community that demands all boys conform to masculine stereotypes. The book is set mainly in the 1980s and captures the bleakness of the Thatcher era and the poverty and struggle of the time and the desire to enjoy life when a little light shines through- it also captures the way in which neighbourhoods an support and in some cases destroy.
Alcoholism is a disease that some survive- Agnes’ battle is heart wrenching and the period of respite with the AA gives the reader some hope but life is not always going to deliver happy ending.
Shuggie’s battle to survive and the demise of his mother is heartbreaking. This isn’t necessarily a joyous read but what comes through is the attempt to triumph over adversity within the most difficult circumstances.

<i>Shuggie</i> Bain is a fictional novel about how poverty, unemployment, and alcoholism can destroy a family. Shuggie is a young boy loves his mother and adores his brother and sister regardless of their faults. The novel <i>Shuggie Bain</i>, the winner the 2020 Booker prize, is the debut novel of the short story writer, Douglas Stuart.

The story begins in the Thatcher era when no one can find a job and poverty and drug addiction are running rampant in Glasgow, Scotland. Agnes lives with her parents, and her three children in a high-rise. Her first two children are the products of a marriage to a man she finds a bit boring. She has moved on to life with a philandering taxicab driver and now has a third child named Shuggie. Agnes is a beautiful woman but she has problems with the drink and she eventually drives her first two children away. She convinces her husband to move outside of Glasgow to a house with a front door. The house turns out to be a dirty rundown house a deteriorating mining community. The neighbours are not much better. Agnes tries her best to rise above her station but it is difficult when she is lonely and dying for a drink. Shuggie is certain he can help his mother if he keeps himself neat and clean and watches her closely. Will any of this help?

The story evokes a lot of emotion, which I am sure is the authors intent. It is excellent at pointing out the declining social conditions that are the result of poor government policies. I had difficulty with the story because it is so depressing and there is just no relief from beginning to end of the novel. It was for this reason that it was a difficult read for me.

The story is very well written and the characters are very strong and compelling. The book takes hold of you right from the beginning. The language is true to life but at times is difficult to understand. However, it adds to the overall feel of the story.

This is a good book for people that like a lot of emotion in what they read. The story is thoroughly depressing and highly emotional. I give it a three on five. I want to thank NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing me with a digital copy of this book. I have provided this honest review voluntarily.

This book was raw and really quite painful to read at times. Despite that, I couldn't stop reading and very much wanted to find out the end story of each character. The writing was evocative - at times beautifully so and at other times brutal. The interplay between the different generations, Agnes and her children, Agnes/Shuggie and the community was fascinating to witness, and portrays the skill of the author in the emotion it conveyed. This book is truly a case study into 1980s, deprivation hit Glasgow and the culture of addiction and homophobia it harboured.

I didn't expect to enjoy this book but I really did.

This book was the winner of the Booker Prize so I was expecting something worth reading. Well that’s exactly what I got, Shuggie Bain is the story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. With the mass population out of work, times are hard and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.

Shuggie is an innocent soul in a cruel world, his mother Agnes constantly finds solace in the bottom of a glass leaving Shuggie and his siblings to fight for themselves. Agnes wants her own house and all the modern comforts but is forced to live off catalogue purchases and any credit she can get. Her husband is a good for nothing philandering taxi-driver so she feels her only escape is to use the family benefits for her hidden drinking to ease the troubles. Agnes’s older children leave her to battle the demon drink with only young Shuggie to care for her. While Shuggie has his own struggles, trying to live a normal life and cope with differences he is yet to acknowledge.

This is a touching story, full of emotion that deals with addiction, sexuality, and love. This book is a portrayal of a working-class family in difficult times and an outstanding debut novel and an excellent read.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

A raw and emotive story that details the brutality of life in Thatcher’s 1980’s Glasgow. This is not a book for the faint hearted, being 430 pages long with only about 20 of them offering any sort of relief.

The story largely focus’s on Shuggie (‘Hugh’) Bain and his mother Agnes Bain who is a struggling alcoholic. The book details the hardships that young Shuggie faces and the neglect that is often inflicted on him throughout his childhood. Shuggie is characterised as being effeminate and therefore ‘different’ to the other boys which leads to horrific bullying. The character of Agnes is complex and at times you feel the utmost compassion for her addiction and pride compared to a lot of the book when you feel disgusted at her actions. She battles not only with addiction but with a number of awful men that take advantage of her in more ways than one.

The book brings up numerous content that may be seen as triggering. Rape, sexual assault, alcoholism, drug abuse and child neglect to name a few.

Given the depressing nature of the book, I thought that I would struggle to get through the book and even though after I had stopped reading it, it weighed on my mind it was an excellently written book which made me keep on reading. It made me feel for the characters and I just wished Shuggie could have had a happier ending.

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart</b> is a story about a young boy called Hugh (Shuggie) Bain and his relationship with his alcoholic mother Agnes in 1980’s, working-class, Glasgow. Shuggie also has a half-brother and half-sister both older than him. They live with Agnes’ parents for a while, in a small council flat, then move to a desolate area with little employment and major social problems. Poor Shuggie is the constant in Agnes’ life, he cares for his Mum after her innumerable ‘benders’ and looks after her from the time he is a wean, until the early 1990’s when he is a teenager. His Father (Big Shug), is a right old bastard with very few redeeming features at all. In fact, Big Shug is one of the many detestable characters in this story.

The author describes the environment of working-class Glasgow with great skill. I can relate this to my childhood in working-class Birmingham (UK) in the 1970’s – and three words come to mind “Grey”, “Wet” and “Aggravation”. This is the picture Stuart paints of Shuggie’s world. The author really nails the abject misery of the place, the public housing, the street gossip, the subtle rippling of the net curtains – whenever there is movement on the street, the violence, the poverty and the grey, miserable wetness of it all. I bet this same picture could be portrayed for any major industrialised UK city in the 1970’s and 80’s.

Two main themes really hit me between the eyes during this reading:

1. Addiction
Even though this story related to alcohol addiction, many of the experiences of the characters could probably apply to any form of addiction – such as gambling, drugs or the like. But there is something about alcoholism that makes it different, it is so affordable and very accessible. We get to see the whole hopelessness of it all. The horrible consequences of recidivism that are so destructive to those around the addict are described so well in this book. It really is a gruelling read. This author must have some first-hand experience of this topic (himself or someone close) because he is so on point. There is very little light shining through in this story, and even when there is a flicker of hope, it is so, so faint it hardly casts any light at all.
The tiny fragments of hope are so fragile.

2. Poverty

As this story takes place during Margaret Thatcher’s era, a period of considerable industrial strife, unemployment, de-industrialisation and poverty come to the fore. Agnes and her kids spend some time living in an area where the mines have shut, consequently, men are idle, mothers are trying to feed weans and run a home and those same weans are running rampant. It’s not a very nice mix and associated issues involving crime, violence and addiction are widespread.

The author beautifully describes the sanctity of the mother-son relationship, in this case, the unconditional devotion of a young boy towards his damaged mother. Poor Shuggie is not only managing Agnes’ terrible situation he’s also negotiating his own upbringing. This includes him confronting bullying from the other boys at the rough schools he attends. This proves to be particularly difficult as he possesses some of the ‘softer’ male attributes. His schooling would have been a nightmare.

“Shuggie felt something was wrong. Something inside him felt put together incorrectly. It was like they could all see it, but he was the only one who could not say what it was. It was just different, and so it was just wrong.”

This book was captivating, a real page-turner. It occupied my thoughts in between reading sessions, you know it’s good when that happens. I have just discovered the author wrote this book over a 10-year period – NO WONDER there is so much jammed into each chapter.

Brilliant.

5 Stars

I'm heartbroken this book is finished, it has to be my book of the year. It's so sad but also humorous in parts. As I was reading I felt Shuggie and Agnes were part of my life, it was so powerful I was thinking about them even when I wasn't actually reading. Poor Shuggie as a child thinking if he could do better it would save him Mum and his Mum powerless over her addiction. Every person, young and old, male and female who has to deal with addiction (or not) should read this book. Definitely a book hangover after finishing this book.
Netgalley very kindly sent me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
#Netgalley #shuggiebain

Hugh “Shuggie” Bain is a little boy who loves and adores his mother, Agnes, with an unyielding faith in her getting better someday.

“When she had disgraced herself with drink, she got up the next day, put on her best coat, and faced the world. When her belly was empty and her weans were hungry, she did her hair and let the world think otherwise.”

Agnes, who firmly believes in “keeping up with appearances” dresses up and maintains herself immaculately when not in a drunken stupor is abandoned by her philandering waste of a husband and then subsequently by her two older children when they can’t handle her addiction and neglect any longer.

But the youngest, Shuggie stays, despite her drunken depraved behavior, despite the poverty, the hunger, the neglect and despite the fact that Agnes, week after week spends all their Social welfare money for food on drinks leaving him barely able to get by.

Shuggie stays. Not just as a child in need of his mother, he stays as child whose mother needs him.

The story of a uncared for child growing up with an alcoholic mother and an absent father may on the outset appear to be a very one-dimensional cliche but Shuggie Bain is a very surprisingly grim, dark albeit a powerfully deep story.

Very atmospheric and rich in emotional depth and sensitivity it’s the writing that really makes this story come alive.

Set in the bleak Margaret Thatcher era when her policies destroyed the working classes and their families as a domino effect, the narrative is very vivid with Shuggie’s hope of facilitating his mother’s recovery someday and Agnes’s attempts to hold everything together but failing phenomenally only to want to maybe try again later.

With its painful and haunting narrative definitely not a suitable read for sensitive readers.

Triggers- substance and alcohol abuse, graphic sexual, emotional, physical abuse, abandonment.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Rain was a natural state of Glasgow. It kept the grass green and the people pale and bronchial.”

Thanks to @netgalley and the publishers for the ARC

Such a heart breaking yet beautiful book to read. The story whilst being about Shuggie is more about his mother Agnes and her battles with alcoholism. Agnes loves her children but with a lack of support consequently makes some really poor choices for her children, often favouring the men in her life.
This book is gritty, its real and with some hard to read moments but Shuggie shines through with his love for his mother.
This book gave me all the feels and very well deserved winner
Thank you Grove Atlantic for this copy to read

Shuggie Bain is a beautifully written, poignant account of a Glaswegian family and their struggles through poverty, family breakdown, alcoholism, and community divisiveness. In a society where misery and despair circle like vultures, after years of economic assault from a Thatcher government on working-class people, the Bain family’s own story is one of profound hardship and an attempt to escape their embattled lives.

Shuggie Bain is a young boy, effeminate in nature, speaking and acting in a manner that regularly brings him into conflict with the other neighbourhood boys. He wants to be ‘normal’ and challenges himself to act normal, to be more like the others, but his nature and his love for his mother are things he can’t escape. While the book title may recognise Shuggie Bain as the main character, his mother Agnes is just as much an absorbing and predominant personality. Agnes is a damaged person, and in my opinion, is the real star of the story. Agnes has two children to a previous husband, Catherine and Leek. Shuggie is the son to her latest husband Shug Bain who is cruel, selfish, abusive, and spends his time chasing other women. Agnes holds onto the notion that she can dress and speak in a way that elevates her from those neighbours in the tenements and mining streets, but her alcohol addiction drags that image down.

“How she could no longer pretend that she was nothing like them, that she was better born and stuck only temporarily in their forgotten corner of misery. It was pride, not danger, that made her so angry.”

The scenes Agnes faces illustrate how hardship and humour are two sides of the same coin. With a dreary life and peculiar characters, humour is always present and ready to light the darkest moments.

Agnes, Shug, Catherine, Leek, and Shuggie all dream of escape from this life and one by one they manage to achieve some level of a new life – all except Agnes and Shuggie, who are thwarted by the millstone alcohol has on Agnes. All the characters offer a unique blend of traits that illustrate an exceptional complexity in human personalities and relationships. The dark humour which renowned in Glasgow is evident and is characteristically deployed at the most inopportune moments. The brilliant Scottish comedian Billy Connolly grew up in the tenements of Glasgow, working in the shipyards under tough conditions, with a sense of humour, a community where families lived on top of each other and shared a duty to support each other in daily needs. Douglas Stuart creates characters in Agnes and Shuggie who challenges that camaraderie, thinking they should be living loftier lifestyles, Agnes because she couldn’t accept how her life panned out, and Shuggie because he was devoted to his mother complied regardless. Douglas Stuart is from Glasgow and much of the background associated with Shuggie is drawn from personal experience and a reference to his own mother states that “My mother died very quietly of addiction one day.”

I would highly recommend this book especially for readers who enjoy deep character studies, a challenging background and human character observation insights that are off the charts. All brought to life with wonderful writing that has been widely recognised as it is the winner of the Booker Prize for 2020.

I would like to thank Grove Press and NetGalley for providing me with a free ARC in return for an honest review.

Sweet and lovable Shuggie Bain raises himself from a young boy through poverty and an addicted mother. Takes place in Glasgow Scotland in the 1980’s. He has his wants and dreams and works his heart out towards a better life. This book tugs at our heart but worth reading.

This book is a wild ride on an emotional whirlwind. It is hopeful, desperate, sad, pathetic and soulful. The characters pulled everything out of me and I'd have to put this book down and think about it every few chapters. This book delivers a full-blown gamut of emotions. Interesting read - I know people that hang on to hope, cling to desire for positive affection and recognition, deny themselves of what is reality out of protecting one's heart and soul. This book was as interesting and heart-wrenching as I expected it to be.

Melancholy and gloomy Glasgow childhood, abuse, neglect and addiction. Deadbeat fathers, unemployment, cruel children. Amazing book despite (or because of) all this.