This is a very dark, depressing, gritty read. It also might be a challenging one for those unfamiliar with the Glasgow dialect-- not unlike the Edinburgh dialect in Welsh's Trainspotting.

It shares other similarities with Welsh's novel. Shuggie Bain is a story of substance addiction and abuse. Think of a possible content warning and it is probably in this book. Graphic rape. Physical and emotional abuse. And beyond these overt horrors, the narrative itself is just so... bleak. It seems fitting that the cover is in black and white because Stuart makes this world feel so grim and grey with his descriptions. Even the most basic of actions feel ugly.

Hugh "Shuggie" Bain is a young boy just trying to get by in Thatcher-era Scotland. This novel - though the author's note makes you wonder how much of it is truly fiction - is about Shuggie's complex feelings towards his mother, Agnes, who is both his hero and a woman who is falling apart. She has been abandoned by Shuggie's father, alone with her kids and her alcoholism, trying to find small pieces of happiness in a life that feels so out of her control.

What makes this novel so sad is that you really can feel what it is to love so deeply a person who is failing you so terribly. Shuggie - and Douglas Stuart, I think - loves Agnes. He could be just another story about a neglected kid with an alcoholic parent, but this is nothing so one-dimensional as that. Even at her worst, it is impossible not to feel sympathy for Agnes. To feel her wanting to try, even as she fails.

There are demons big and small in this book. The kind that are selfish people who behave unkindly, the kind that are addictions which enslave a person, and the kind that made the Thatcher era such a misery for the Northern working class. I understand this culture too well. I grew up in Yorkshire, and the effect of this time was so great, the horrors so deeply-engraved that many people from working class areas still whisper the name "Thatcher" like a curse.

I would not recommend reading this unless you are in a good mental place. It is a horrible, dreary read, there's no doubt, but if you see past the layers of ugliness and allow this to rip your heart out, I also think there's a lot of love to be found in here.

Set in 1980s Glasgow with authentic Gaelic dialogue. Story centers upon young Shuggie Bain, son of an alcoholic mother and abusive, philandering father. They are a working class family, and there is much violence throughout the book. He is discovering his sexuality in a macho, homophobic world. Their extended family and acquaintances are intolerant of each other. This book is around 500 pages and could have been half as long, serving the story much better than it does at its extended length.

This book took me an extremely long time to get into. It was very gritty and the author took a lot of time to get this time period right. This is a hard book to read but the pay off is good.. You will need lots of breaks as you read this.

I visited Glasgow last year and saw a city that while a bit gritty was getting on with things. People were out and about and there was a general good vibe about the place. Not so for young Shuggie Bain growing up in the 1980s with massive unemployment, hopelessness, poverty, alcoholism and the scourge of power - domestic violence. And poor Shuggie suffers further due to his effeminate manners, speech and interests. He adores his mother but her addition to the drink destroys her and those she knows. Her rants and violence against those who have offended her are extraordinary. But she retains her looks and is a victim of men looking for sex. Then there is Huggie's father who can't keep his pants on and disappears from their lives.
The book pounds the reader with tales of violence, drunkenness, child exploitation and paedophilia. In this world the meek do not inherit anything except bashings. It's not a pretty read but it does tell a tale of what life was like (and still is for some) who suffer from addiction, isolation and abandonment.
There is love in the story, especially between Huggie and his mother, and there is always hope.

4.5 Stars

”The day was flat. That morning his mind had abandoned him and left his body wandering down below. The empty body went listlessly through its routine, pale and vacant-eyed under the fluorescent strip lights, as his soul floated above the aisles and thought only of tomorrow. Tomorrow was something to look forward to.”

Shuggie Bain, whose real name is Hugh, named after his father, Shug, a taxi driver who is the second husband of Agnes, Shuggie’s Mom. Despite Agnes dazzling beauty, Shug seems unable or unwilling to be faithful to his vows, which only fuels her already acute desire for alcohol. They live in an impoverished section of Glasgow along with Shuggie’s siblings, Catherine and Leek, as well as Agnes’ parents. One by one disappearing over the years, leaving Shuggie overseeing, if not controlling, his mother’s drinking, ever hopeful that his love will save her from herself and the demons that haunt her.

Shuggie has his own problems outside of home, as well. At school he is bullied for not fitting in with the boys, for being too emotionally soft and effeminate, taunted by students as well as school staff, which also seems to make him an east target for others, as well. What little money they receive goes to necessities, but with Agnes making those decisions alcohol falls into the necessary category.

Set during the 1980’s-90 when Thatcher was Prime Minister and the economy and industry collapsed, affecting the working-class families disproportionally, many living off unemployment during this time and losing hope for their future, the setting is a bleak one, rarely letting up. Still, enough light shines through which kept me from setting this aside, and Shuggie, who is an unforgettable character whose story was an incredible, powerful story of love.

For those who don’t typically read the acknowledgements, you will be shortchanging yourself if you bypass this one.



Pub Date: 11 Feb 2020

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Grove Atlantic – Grove Press & NetGalley

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.

This book will stay with you long after the book has been read. The book is about a family growing up with an alcoholic mother in Glasgow in the 80’s. The book is especially about the youngest child Shuggi Bain who grows up taking care of his mother . Shuggi knows he is different but much too young to understand why he is different from other boys his own age. There is the succession of men including his own father and neighbours who take advantage of his mother so that she can get her next drink. Read this book and weep for this child , his mother and the whole family irreversibly damaged by alcohol .

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a true gem, a wonderfully empathetic, but also tough novel about the son of an alcoholic mother growing up in Glasgow during the Thatcher era, and this debut might become all the rage this award season. Stuart's novel centers on young Shuggie, whose beautiful mother Agnes left her first husband - a steady and honest, but not very exciting man - because she dreamt of a more glamorous, affluent and adventurous life with her lover Shug. Caught up in her own want and daydreams, she marries the womanizing and abusive taxi driver and has her third child with him (Hugh, called Shuggie), but when Agnes realizes that he will not live up to her ideals and turn her life around, she starts wrecking herself with alcohol - and Shug leaves. Shuggie grows up feeling responsible for his mother, desperately trying to support her while feeling utterly helpless - at the same time, he struggles with his queerness, faces abuse and suffers under the oppressive poverty that surrounds him.

Stuart introduces us to a child who tries to take responsibility for overstrained grown-ups, his siblings who find different ways to cope, a woman whose happiness is fully dependent on the men she is with, a whole neighborhood going down with the collapsing industries, and working-class men and women who see their pride dwindle. Until today, Thatcher is a much-hated figure in Scotland, as during her time as Prime Minister, heavy industry pretty much collapsed, mines closed, the financial market was deregulated, and unemployment rocketed. Many workers felt like not only their livelihood, but their dignity was at risk (see the miners's strike 1984-1985), and Glasgow University found out that the rise in drug deaths in the 1980s was linked to the rise in inequality - the study talks about an "erosion of hope".

This "erosion of hope" is exactly what the characters in the novel experience. Stuart's writing is strongest when he paints individual, bleak pictures, grim vignettes about fear, brutality, surrender and self-hatred. Drunk and helpless, Agnes faces sexual assault, Shuggie is bullied and attacked, and the equally poor neighbors are fighting all kinds of demons, but they can all hardly find the strength to act in solidarity - they are overwhelmed by the cards life has dealt them. Meanwhile, Agnes' parents blame themselves, and especially her father, a worker of a different generation, has trouble stomaching what has become of his daughter - not that unworldly, selfish Agnes doesn't carry responsibility for her actions, she clearly does, but the reality that surrounds her makes it a lot harder for her to get up again, become sober and take another chance. Still, there are also glimpses of hope, there is love (although love is sometimes not enough) and the power of empathy and forgiveness.

A lot of dialogue is written in Scottish dialect, which gives the text an even grittier, more authentic feel. Stuart crafts elaborate scenes to illustrate (but never openly explain) his points, adding lots of atmosphere and giving intricate descriptions of people's looks, movements and behaviors: Agnes in a wet fur coat, shaking from withdrawal; Shuggie in his wellies stealing copper with his brother; balding Shug driving through Glasgow in his taxi - there are so many memorable scenes that shine through their almost visual quality and emotional intelligence.

This is a novel about a ravaged family in a desperate neighborhood, a story about addiction, and an evocation of a period of Scottish history that still reverberates. It is a compassionate text by a writer who knows what he is talking about, a companion piece to Trainspotting (not although, but because it is so different), a book not to be missed.

He 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.'

Drinking and Drugs as escape during a time when people are out of work and downtrodden happens in any country. In this moving novel, Shuggie Bain comes of age during the 1980’s in Glasgow, Scotland. “Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work”, which is bad enough but with a taxi driver father loose with infidelities and a mother sick of living a crammed existence at her parents, who gets angry ‘with littered promises of better things’ , the future doesn’t look good for their children (Catherine, Leek and Shuggie). Agnes Bain enjoys the taste of drink as much as she loves attention from men, envy from women. She wants a better life, even if it means beautifying herself while women in the same circumstances as her laugh at her, or feel insanely terrified she’ll steal their men. She had fun once, before life meant struggle, poverty. The past was full of carefree dancing but those times are over.

Born with bad teeth, she was so sure dentures would glam her smile like the movie stars in Hollywood. She is beautiful but doomed by her drinking, and her constant hunger for more. Shug senior is nothing but a selfish animal, but something about him made her hunger for him so much she left her first marriage for him, despite him being a Protestant and she, a Catholic. A steady husband didn’t give her the thrill a woman of her beauty deserved! Ending up back at her parents is not the life she had in mind, there is nothing dazzling about a handsome husband rutting with the women he drives on the job. When he promises a fresh start, instead they land in the ‘plainest, unhappiest looking homes’. The neighbor women don’t like her nor her fancy airs. Worse, Shug senior has made other plans for himself, and off he goes, blaming it on her weakness for drink, her refusal to give it up for love of him. Her vices cost her children more than just their image within the community, there is no money to stretch, nothing to eat. She isn’t adverse to pawning even her son Leek’s work tools!

As Agnes unravels, her children feel the worst of it but none more than her youngest, Shuggie. Without proper care and supervision his belly often goes empty, his ‘otherness’ making him a target for the other kids torture before he even knows what he is. In fact, adults even understand his sexuality better than him, in one horrifying moment he loses innocence, looking for his mother. His brother and sister both have different plans to escape this hellish life. Shuggie remains steadfast in his devotion to his mother, despite her humiliations and the added abuse he gets from adults and children alike for her actions. All manner of degradation enters his life too, and poverty isn’t just an aside in this story. It is ever present and suffocating. The story begins with Shuggie in a tenement, doing all he can just to survive, to feed and house himself despite his youth. Still striving, despite life never having given him one solitary gift, blessing. Maybe this strength is one inheritance he got from his mother Agnes, who even at her lowest went on with her head held high, kept going despite all the blows she received. You should hate her, you really should, but instead you just feel immense pity.

How does a child hold his own, with a mother who is always embarrassing herself and a father who is absent, uncaring, off making other families? Not every child can cling to the sinking ship, oldest sister Catherine has her own secret life with one Donald Jnr ‘away from their disintegrating mother’. But Leek was the one who wants to disappear the most! Leek, too, has too much to bear with his real father, who also ‘disappeared’ in his own way, or was pushed away. Whose to say? Leek is too young too feel so tired, so old trying to learn at the YTS site with the hopes of making a living, when in truth it is his art that is the only thing that can make him drop his shoulders in relaxation. So tired of his drunk mother and her poor decisions. Feeling abandoned too by his sister Catherine, in her new life abroad, he has nothing, no one. He can’t stay back and care for his sloppy mother nor his little brother, he too is striving for a different life. Living with Agnes is like doing time.

It is Shuggie who is her constant companion, and as the years rush on, each time he has faith she will quit drinking she fails, the dream collapses and not even fresh love can save her. Don’t expect salvation nor happy endings, this is based in the real world, not fantasy. Struggle makes you stronger, but you don’t magically get liberated from poverty with wishes and prayers. Shuggie is a survivor, and nothing in his life is easy but he just might make a friend along the way.

A heart-wrenching read that makes your problems seem flimsy. It’s not a glimpse at poverty and addiction, it is an extended stay and beautifully written despite the miseries visited upon the characters.

Publication Date: February 21, 2020

Grove Atlantic

Five stars a brillant first novel literary fiction at its best.An emotional read a book of family hardships a book that drew me in to their world from the first pages,Will be recommending this book to all my bookish friends.#netgalley#groveatlantic

Public housing in Glasgow, Scotland during the poverty-stricken Thatcher years: The setting is dreary and bleak. The actions of the adults are often despicable. The despair of the children is heart-breaking. Yet I could NOT stop reading. I couldn't wait to see how Shuggie emerges from his childhood. I was rooting for him, and his mother Agnes, even when I thought they should both give up. It's an engrossing saga that lingers long after the last page. Shuggie Bain is a character who will stay with me for a long time.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair review.

My heart and gut were grievously affected by this story.
I learned a lot. I felt even more.

I’ve already discussed this book in length with my husband- making him read parts with me. I tried to comprehend the brutal conditions...
I was a little confused in the beginning.... needing to read each sentence slowly.
I didn’t feel familiar -enough- with the settling or history.

I’m ashamed to say how little I knew about the 1980’s - 1990’s - poverty-ravaged Thatcher-era in Glasgow.... horrific devastation - overflowing with hunger, unemployment, working-class struggles, drugs, alcohol, prostitution, gambling, bullying, violence, and despair in Scotland’s biggest city.

I spent a couple of hours ( thanks to this book)... reading up on the Thatcher era. I even discovered some photos ( thank you Google), by a French photographer, Raymond Depardon, whose photos expressed profoundly the bleak conditions.
The photos are worth viewing along side reading this book.

Douglas Stuart has given us - scene after scene - a blistering slice of reality—which boggles the harmony of my mind—evoking disarming emotions.
It’s novels like these with historical substance- that helps us make sense - have compassion- of so much senselessness.

When reading parts of this book with my husband, Paul,....
“Slumdog millionaire” came to his mind....
John Irving characters came to mine.

“Shuggie Bain”....
.....exposes the realities of the shocking depths of poverty... with vivid characters whose weaknesses were both credible and compelling.
Douglas Stuart’s affection for his characters are palpable and his skill as a writer undeniable.

My tummy did somersaults a few times...
Sentences were crushingly unsettling. Yet, it’s the characters - especially Shuggie Bain- I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

The dialect was powerful - enriching characterization , geographical, and social background of the Bain family.

There was a civil war going on.
With mass unemployment, drunk people staggering through the streets... communities were. collapsing.

The* Bain Family* was the prime focus during daunting times...during a time when leaders in government were greedy capitalists...
... relevant to times today.

Agnes Bain...( whose beauty is compared to with Elizabeth Taylor)...is
an alcoholic. She stands tall ....after a binge of drinking - with her make-up and clothes...
I thought about a line I heard years ago:
“when you feel crappy on the inside, dress it up on the outside”. Agnes was that type of woman.
Her second husband, Hugh, (Shug), was a philandering taxi driver, scumbag human being. Slim and evil are appropriate words to describe him.

At the start of this story,
Agnes and Hugh live on the sixteenth floor in a tiny apartment with their three children - ( Leek, Catherine, Shuggie), and Agnes parents: Lizzie and Wullie Campbell.
You’ll get to know everyone.

The Bain family was living on the edge with devastating dysfunction...
.....( hurting each other - neglect & abandonment-escape -addictions were the norm)....

As Shuggie, ( youngest in the Bain family), comes-of-age, we are reminded and awaken to the what happens to children when they grow up with debilitating chronic chaos.
I don’t want to say too much Shuggie- himself- other than to say he will live in your thoughts long after the book ends.

Love, loss, abuse, addictions, leaving...
trauma, loneliness, being different, a ‘mother/son’ connection... are themes explored.

Beneath all the pain there is hope coursing through this novel. There is redemption- but nothing is sugar-coated.
We are not left with a fluffy ending...( tears filled my eyes at the end)....
Stuart does not sneer at domestic heartache - or infuse it with doom - he depicts realism.
And REALISM IS SAD!!!
His affection for his characters are palpable and his skill as a writer undeniable.

Thank you Netgalley, Grove Atlantic, and Douglas Stuart for the opportunity to read this book early.

“Shuggie Bain” will be released in February, 2020.
Highly recommended!

Easily one of the most heart wrenching examples of auto fiction to come out of the United Kingdom. Donald Stuart's debut (!) novel relates in nuanced, excruciating detail the coming of age of Hugh (Shuggie) Bain, youngest child of Agnes, raised on the mean streets and outskirts of Glasgow in the eighties during the times of Iron Lady Thatcher. The trickle down effect her regime brought on working class Glaswegians. Agnes herself never had a chance. Her history, told in backstories, contributed to her sense of hopelessness assuaged only by comfort at the bottom of a bottle. Everyone leaves, except her youngest who sees her through, a union that forged an unexpected spine of steel in the boy, leading to ultimate redemption. This is the first (unbelievable!) work of a voice to be reckoned with.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book was so heartbreaking and deep. Very much a character built and driven, realistic novel. Great debut novel.

Douglas Stuart’s powerful debut novel ”Shuggie Bain” is a compelling read that covers a lot of ground. But I felt that the core theme is all about abandonment - by the cruel Thatcher government of Britain’s citizens, by men of women and children, by greedy capitalists of hard-working family breadwinners.

The results are fully predictable: adults who self-medicate and become addicts to self-medicate to deaden the pain, children who become mean, evil, misogynist, and sexually promiscuous when devoid of supervision and role models. Education is a waste of time for most, a place of pain and a constant threat of sexual abuse and bullying. Food is scarce and secondary to alcohol, drugs, and gambling. Housing is cramped, damp, and dangerous.

Glasgow is the perfect background – dark, dreary, scary, and desolate. There is a hopelessness and emptiness that is profoundly sad. Douglas Stewart captures all of this with a relentless drumbeat. There are several times when his sentences take your breath away. There are many others where events break your heart.
And through it all is Shuggie Bain who is one of the most wonderful characters to come along in a very long time. You will never be forgotten.
Thank you Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the eArc.

It's hard to grasp that this is Douglas Stuart's first novel. There is not a word that does not propel this book forward in the most gripping and heart-rending way. This is a beautiful story of love and family, with an insidious villain. I loved every page.

Thanks to the publisher, Edelweiss, and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book. I'm still reeling.

~~Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader

This gets a solid four-and-a-half-star rating from me. It's tough to believe Douglas Stuart is a first-time novelist: "Shuggie Bain" is so tightly written and plotted and evokes the seamier side of Thatcher's Glasgow so vividly. I appreciate that he didn't cop out with happy denouements, neatly tied-up endings, and characters who were all black or all white. And the final chapters are close to perfect. The only reason I'm not giving this five stars is that a few parts felt repetitive and a few of the jumps from one character's POV to another were confusing. (I'm persnickety when it comes to handing out five-star ratings!)

Thank you, Grove Atlantic and NetGalley, for providing me with a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.