Of how gender-based violence is normalised and accepted to a point that when one tries to break the cycle, the help is outrightly rejected. There’s a hint of how traumatic growing up years can mess up caregiving for a person.

It is many, many stories in one.Īn array of phenomena operates in the literary world-building of Stuart. Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism, Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo is 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.Trigger warning: Mention of sexual assault, queer slurs, and murderīooker Prize-winning author Douglas Stuart’s second novel Young Mungo (Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, 2022) can be triggering for many queer people to read. When Mungo’s mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in Western Scotland, with two strange men behind whose drunken banter lie murky pasts, he needs to summon all his inner strength and courage to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future. As they begin to fall in love, they dream of escaping the grey city, and Mungo must work hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his elder brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold.īut the threat of discovery is constant and the punishment unspeakable. They should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all, and yet they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the doocot that James has built for his prize racing pigeons. 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.

The extraordinary, powerful second novel from the Booker prizewinning author of Shuggie Bain, Young Mungo is both a vivid portrayal of working-class life and the deeply moving story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James.īorn under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. ‘Writing of transcendent beauty’ – The Financial Times ‘Best Summer Books’ ‘Love and hope across the religious divide in a fervent, gritty and emotionally engrossing novel’ – The Guardian ‘Best Reads For Summer’

Superb’ – The Times ‘Best Summer Reading’ ‘A touching, tender tale of boy meets boy in the bleak tenements of Glasgow.

Young mungo review