Shuggie Bain

Welp. This is one majorly depressing read. The book does an excellent job of transporting the reader to 1980s Glasgow, in the home(s) of an alcoholic single mother — and for that reason, I personally didn't find it to be an enjoyable escape. It does an excellent job of getting the reader to feel what it's like to have an alcoholic parent in the poorest parts of the city, and the struggles of drug and alcohol abuse and joblessness in the Thatcher era. You find yourself rooting for Agnes each time she gets sober, all the while with the sinking knowledge it won't last. You find yourself feeling deeply, deeply sad for the queer boy who loves his mother despite it all, maybe because he doesn't fit in anywhere else.

While the story is immersive and compelling, the lower rating is purely because I found it a bit tedious at times;I think it's long and drags on, but that did add to the endless feeling of the cycles of poverty and alcoholism. I found the Glasgowegian vernacular to be almost as difficult to read as it is to hear, but it got easier as the book went along, and certainly added to the authenticity.

The misery in this book is unrelenting. The working class in 1980's Glasgow endure unemployment and resulting poverty with a judgmental outlook that punishes anyone who stands out as getting above themselves, and cruelty to anyone perceived as weak or vulnerable. In the midst of all this is the Bain family. Their mother, Agnes Bain, left her marriage to an upstanding but boring man to marry Hugh Bain (Shug), a volatile, womanizing taxi driver who beat her and eventually abandoned her. She becomes an alcoholic. Her two older children get out of the house as soon as they can, but her youngest, Shuggie, dotes on her and tries to protect her from herself. Shuggie is vulnerable because he is a delicate boy, particular about his dress and his speech, and he prefers to play with dolls and other girls' things rather than sports. The book follows Shuggie and his mother as Shuggie grows up. There are moments of kindness and beauty, but they make the misery that inevitably follows that much more heartbreaking. I kept reading, though, because I hoped for some redemption. It was hard won and subtle, but it eventually came. I think this is a really fine novel.

This really hit home for me, having grown up as the child of an addict. The circumstances were different, but it captured the anxiety, the worrying, the way I could never enjoy the good moments because I didn't know if they were real or how long they would last. It was a hard read, but there was beauty in the pain.

Heartbreaking but brilliant

Un très beau roman qui nous plonge à Glasgow dans les années 1980, à la rencontre de Shuggie, un jeune garçon différent issu d'un milieu défavorisé, entre sa mère alcoolique, un père plus souvent absent que présent, et son frère et sa soeur aînés qui n'attendent qu'une seule chose : pouvoir fuir le domicile familial.

C'est tragique, parfois glauque, mais aussi plein d'amour. Pas de l'amour façon bons sentiments qui dégoulinent de guimauve, de l'amour triste mais sincère, profond. Celui d'un fils pour sa mère qu'il essaye de sauver de ses démons et qu'il aime malgré tout. Celui d'un grand frère frustré de ne pas pouvoir l'aider à fuir à son tour cette situation infernale.

C'est vraiment un très beau premier roman pour Douglas Stuart, dont je vais m'empresser de lire son deuxième roman, que j'imagine autant autobiographique que celui-ci.

Beautiful, sad, poignant book.

two kids talk about their inebriated mothers. one of them says something along the lines of: that's what alcoholics want — to die. it's just that some take the long road.

and: there is nothing you can do to help.

Shuggie Bain is a book about losing one's self to the coldness of addiction. losing what you were and what you could be, and losing the people you care about.

it is also about finding oneself. or rather, finding out that you are not actually lost, you just are. and you should start owning your self.


i liked this book. it is an emotional story. a good story, in its tragedy and realism.

This will break you. Again and again. The misery is relentless and yet there are moments of hope and light that keep you going.

Beautiful writing, painful story. If I have one doubt, it's the structure, which begins with Shuggie's present life and then jumps back to his earlier life. That approach undercuts the suspense somewhat, as it telegraphs part of the plot. Nonetheless, the ending is fantastic. Don't give up on the book.

My eyes are a little moist. What a novel. It captures Glasgow as a character perfectly.

I haven't read all of the Booker shortlisted books but from the nominated books I have read, Shuggie Bain is in a different league. Set in Glasgow in the 1980s through to the 1990s, this novel is a Bildungsroman that follows protagonist Shuggie Bain's journey from childhood into young adulthood. While Shuggie, raised in poverty and squalor battles with his homosexual identity in a homophobic era. He also has to contend with his mums spiralling alcoholism from a very young age.

This novel is confrontational and hard hitting. It doesn't shy away from the brutal and destructive nature of alcoholism and it's detrimental affect on close family members. This was one of the most heartbreaking and soul wrenching books I have read in years. Shuggie is a beautiful and loyal character who loves his mother Agnes and desperately and ultimately fruitlessly tries to keep his mother from the devil drink. Poignant and raw and littered with the authentic Glaswegian working class vernacular, this book is searing with the heartbreak of addiction, poverty and the complicated relationship each character battles between survival and love.

I would be over the moon for this to be the 2020 Booker winner as it is so honest and heartfelt as well as extremely haunting and painful to read. For a debut this book is incredibly impressive and I cannot wait to see what this author will write next.

Thanks to the author, the publishers Grove Press and Netgalley for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

When I first started Shuggie Bain, I didn't get it. But around 200 pages in, I became obsessed. This is one of those tales that I often struggle to get into as I'm not sure where it's going or what the point of it is. Then one event happens or it suddenly clicks inside me that I'm not supposed to be waiting for a rising plot, I'm supposed to be encompassing all of the mini-plots unraveling within the story and squishing them together into one amazing tale. This is Shuggie Bain. Shuggie Bain is also pain, sorrow, sadness and brutal honesty. It's a must-read but features a fair few trigger warnings.

Even though I made it nearly 2/5 into this big book and rather enjoy Shuggie, I will still stop here, as it broadly just has too much misery and too many unlikeable characters. It's a mood thing, not a quality thing.

This got loads of positive reviews and I was worried it was over-hyped. Glad to say I was wrong, this was a really good debut novel.
It's a story of a family falling apart as the mother's loses herself in her alcoholism. Shuggie adores his mother despite the drink and will do anything for her.
The darkness and depression of Glasgow's poverty-stricken underbelly are reflected in the themes. It's really not a happy book although there's a slight whiff of positivity at the end.
It reminded me a bit of Angela's Ashes but I was more enthused by this as it's set in my adopted home. I enjoyed Stuart's blending of the broad Glesca patter with his poetic prose.
It's not my usual sort of read but I'm glad I gave it a go and it definitely deserves all the plaudits.

I really didn't want to read this. The black and white cover and the story of a Glasgow boy growing up gay with his alcoholic mother. Literary misery porn parading gay suffering. When it wins the Booker it only confirms my suspicions about how inevitably bleak and dire the story would surely be. And then I'm tasked to review it for the Booktube Prize so I begrudgingly pick it up.

I'm immediately hooked. Shuggie is growing up in council housing surrounded by unemployed miners, dirty faced kids, drunken gossips and folks prying open electric meters to steal the coins within. Meanwhile Shuggie's mom is drinking herself into a stupor, screaming into the telephone, raging against the men she's hard done by, putting her head into the oven, setting the bedroom on fire, and driving away her two eldest children. Agnes is just a huge character on the page. Despite her faults Shuggie remains steadfast, can see the effort she puts into appearances, her fierce unbroken pride that stands with her back straight even as she's sinking in the grey.

It's less gay trauma and more the resilience of love even in the face of a challenging person, clear eyed about their flaws and faults and loving them just the same. It's heartbreaking but comes from a place not intent on mining Agnes or Shuggie's misery in some showy literary way but instead a confident portrayal - warts and all - of a complicated woman. Pure gallus.

I heard the Audible version and it is superb. The Glasgow accent takes some time to get accustomed to. But once it's on track, the novel grows into you and eats you away. It is a gritty rendering of the toxic relationship between Shuggie Bain and his alcoholic mother and all the hell they go through.

Way too depressing for quarantine

greetin

Edit- Later

It was driving me nuts where I knew the picture of the cover of this book from: The Leftovers! It's in the opening from Season 2+



I spent most of 2020 avoiding this book. It was everywhere and I could tell by looking at it that it was going to be sad and depressing and it just wasn't what I needed. Then, it made the TOB shortlist and I was forced to tromp my way through it.
Completely living up to expectations, Shuggie Bain is sad and depressing AF. Scene after devastating scene we witness sadness, addiction and (let's call it what it is) child abuse. Add in a few rapes. Add in the lack of being accepted by the only community available. Add in abandonment and malnutrition. I'm not even going to touch the difficult emotions that Shuggie is dealing with....

Here's the thing, this should have been called Agnes Bain, because we barely meet Shuggie. We see him for a hot minute in the beginning of the book and at the very end. Agnes's story ends when he's what, 12? It was never his story.
I kept thinking, I can do this (and this book is LONG), if Stuart would just let off the gas a little bit. If one hopeful or funny thing would happen. Just throw me a bone...but no. It would just get worse. I was sad, mad, depressed and exhausted reading this. Is the writing beautiful? Sure. Is this new territory for me as a reader? No. In fact, it hit a little too close to home and I found I identified with Leek waaaaaay more than I did Shuggie. And I read a bunch of reviews that promised(!) that the abuse would be balanced out by the amount of love in this novel. There is no love in this novel.
This is not love. This is codependency. Agnes did not even love Agnes.
In the end, I got exactly what I expected to get out of this.