Like Shuggie, Mungo is a gentle and sensitive young man whose fundamental goodness is being battered from all corners: his brother Hamish is a violent gang leader, his mother is a selfish yet resilient alcoholic, and his smart sister Jodie is perhaps too focused on dragging herself up in the world to fully understand him. Out today, his stunning follow-up novel Young Mungo is even more enthralling and in places, equally bleak. Written in throbbingly vital prose, it tells the story of a young boy whose childhood is defined by inner-city poverty, his mother’s alcoholism and his own effeminacy, which is deemed “no right” by tough Glasgow locals. The Glasgow-born author – a former designer for Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren – won the Booker Prize in 2020 for his remarkable debut novel Shuggie Bain, a poignant modern classic. Douglas Stuart’s writing isn’t just vivid and riveting it’s also heart-wrenchingly tender.
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