Douglas Stuart's books: a guide to the author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo

Winner of the Booker Prize
Winner of 'Book of the Year' and 'Debut of the Year' at the British Book Awards
The Million-Copy Bestseller

A heart-wrenchingly moving novel set in Glasgow during the Thatcher years, Shuggie Bain tells the story of a boy's doomed attempt to save his proud, alcoholic mother from her addiction.

'An amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love.' – The judges of the Booker Prize

'Shuggie Bain means so much to me. It is such a powerfully written story . . . I love a heartbreak book but there is so much love within this one, particularly between Shuggie and his mother' – Dua Lipa

It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life, dreaming of greater things. But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and as she descends deeper into drink, her children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves.

It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. Shuggie is different, he is clearly no’ right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place.

Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. For readers of A Little Life and Angela's Ashes, it is a heartbreaking novel by a brilliant writer with a powerful and important story to tell.

'Douglas Stuart has written a first novel of rare and lasting beauty.' – The Observer

'A heartbreaking novel.' – The Times

'Tender and unsentimental . . . The Billy Elliot-ish character of Shuggie . . . leaps off the page.' – Daily Mail

The number one Sunday Times bestseller, from the Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain.

'Beautiful and moving, a gay Romeo and Juliet set in the brutal world of Glasgow’s housing estates' – The Observer

A Selection of Dua Lipa's Service95 Bookclub.

Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo is a vivid portrayal of working-class life in 80s Glasgow, and the deeply moving story of the dangerous first love of two young men.

Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates, where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation.

They should be sworn enemies and yet, as they begin to fall in love, they dream of escape, and Mungo must work hard to hide his true self from all those around him . . .

A gripping and revealing story about the meaning of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by so many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.

_{Young Mungo was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 10/4/22}

The stunning new novel from the Booker Prize-winning, Sunday Times-bestselling author of SHUGGIE BAIN and YOUNG MUNGO.

'This book is special' - Colm Tóibín
'Passionate, liberating, and gorgeous' - Min Jin Lee
'Brilliant and rare' - Ann Patchett
'A masterpiece' - Elaine Feeney
'A fierce, glorious sting of a novel' - Lauren Groff
'Mesmeric, transportive, vividly sensory' - Bernardine Evaristo

Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry home to the island of Harris to find that not much has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal resumes his old life, caught between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella, who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for decades.

While Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As the seasons pass, everything is poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly entangled.

John of John is the heartbreaking story of a young man’s return home and how the bonds of family life are torn by the weight of expectation. It confirms Douglas Stuart as one of the great British writers at work today.