Young Mungo

Starred review from February 14, 2022
The astonishing sophomore effort from Booker Prize winner Stuart (Shuggie Bain) details a teen’s hard life in north Glasgow in the post-Thatcher years. Mungo is 15, the youngest of three Protestant siblings growing up in one of the city’s poverty-stricken “schemes.” The children’s alcoholic mother leaves them periodically for a married man with children of his own. Mungo’s father is long gone, and Mungo’s sister, Jodie, looks after their household as best she can. Hamish, Mungo’s hooligan brother and ringleader of a gang of Protestant Billy Boys, is a constant threat to Mungo, who, tender of heart and profoundly lonely, is at the mercy of his violent moods. Even after Mungo meets the kindred James, a Catholic boy who keeps pigeons, he is overwhelmed by his self-loathing, assuming all the calamity around him is somehow his fault. He doesn’t have a clue what it is he wants. All he knows is that amid the blood and alcohol and spittle-sprayed violence of his daily existence, James is a gentle, calming respite. Their friendship is the center of this touching novel, but it also leads to a terrifying and tragic intervention. Stuart’s writing is stellar—a man’s voice sounds “like he had a throatful of dry toast”; a boy has “ribs like the hull of an upturned boat.” He’s too fine a storyteller to go for a sentimental ending, and the final act leaves the reader gutted. This is unbearably sad, more so because the reader comes to cherish the characters their creator has brought to life. It’s a sucker punch to the heart. Agent: Anna Stein, ICM Partners.

Starred review from September 1, 2022

Like his debut Shuggie Bain, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, Stuart's latest is a raw depiction of Glasgow in the Thatcher years--economically depressed, endemically alcoholic, and no safe place for a gay boy just discovering his sexuality. Stuart masterfully builds tension in two timelines as he flashes between the present, where Mungo ruefully follows two adult "friends" far into the woods on a fishing trip, and the events that led Momo (Maureen, never Mum or Ma) to send her son off with these acquaintances from Alcoholics Anonymous. In the past, Mungo finds sanctuary from his drunk, absentee mother and his gang leader brother at a dovecote built by James, beautiful, blond, and one year older. Friendship grows into attraction, but Catholic James is doubly forbidden by the codes that rule Mungo's Protestant family. The situation in the present darkens to a nadir as they risk discovery and the inevitable violence it will bring. Glaswegian narrator Chris Reilly creates an authentic sense of place and characterizations that compel listeners to keep going despite the bleakness. VERDICT A flawlessly narrated Scottish dialect matched to gut-wrenching writing make this bildungsroman a nonstop listen and a must-buy.--Lauren Kage

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