Young Mungo: The No. 1 Sunday Times Bestseller

Product Information

He was Mo-Maw’s youngest son, but he was also her confidant, her lady’s maid, and errand boy. He was her one flattering mirror, and her teenage diary, her electric blanket, her doormat. He was her best pal, the dog she hardly walked and her greatest romance. He was her cheer on a dreich morning, the only laughter in her audience. …[he] was her mother’s minor moon, her warmest sun, and at the exact same time, a tiny satellite that she had forgotten about. He would orbit her for an eternity, even as she, and then he, broke into bits. Douglas Stuart’s writing is vigorous, profound, and descriptive, and therefore, I could picture a drunk Mo-Maw, Mungo at the loch with those two men, or what was about to happen so well. At times I wanted to scream at Mungo to watch out and stay away because something terrible was going to happen, but Mungo was such a sweet and likable boy (a loyal dog according to Douglas Stuart) and just too naive. So different from all the others in that masculine working-class environment in Glasgow, a city split between Catholics and Protestants. Different except for James. The gentle and vulnerable love between those boys was the highlight of this story. I loved those first moments when Mungo and James comforted each other, and they made me forget the darkness and the heartbreaking moments for a while. But the largest similarity of all is that this is another superbly and clearly patiently crafted piece of writing, with deeply rounded characters, a vivid use of language and many striking and original similes (as well as some subtle use of metaphor). And as a result one which is both engrossing ( I found myself thorough immersed in Mungo’s story just like Shuggie’s, and actually missed the book each time I was away from it) and hugely affecting (with its mix of light and dark). It is harsh, ugly, and frightening, and it comes from events so hideous that I was sure I would lose my rag and start screaming incoherently at the Kindle. And it was, in this reader's angry, bitter judgment, the only and the best way he could have behaved. It was a boy, cooked in a bath of rage, becoming the only man that bath dissolved the fatty, weakening childness off of him to be. The Globe 100: The best books of 2022". The Globe and Mail. 2 December 2022. Archived from the original on 5 December 2022 . Retrieved 24 February 2023.

The book doesn’t feel like effortless writing. It tries too hard to justify the tag of 'literary fiction' and is just as verbose as the blurb indicates. Some analogies work. Most are superfluous and/or superficial. Flowery prose appeals to me only if it is accompanied by a strong plot. When there are miles and miles of prose and barely any signs of a plot, I lose my interest. I haven’t yet read Stuart’s Booker prize winning novel Shuggie Bain, but this appears to be set in a similar setting with similar themes of post-Thatcher poverty in 1990s Glasgow, single families, alcoholism and violence. The focus of this novel is the adolescent Mungo rather than the younger Shuggie and his mother Agnes. The writing is evocative and liberally sprinkled with colourful similes and descriptions and the authentic dialogue very much captures the mood of the time. The main characters are so well drawn we would recognise them in an instant and even the minor characters have an authentic individuality about them. In many ways this is a hard book to read and review, as what happens to young Mungo is painful and depressing. The ending is particularly dark and disturbing and left me feeling sad, but really hoping that there will be some light in both Mungo’s and James’ futures after all they have endured and lost.Norwegian: Unge Mungo. Translated by Hilde Stubhaug. Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. 19 May 2022. ISBN 9788205563469.

Do you know that feeling when one of your colleagues at work comes down with a stomach flu, and then one by one your coworkers drop like flies, and you know it's only a matter of time until it hits you too? It was a funny thing to observe; near strangers who had shared some of their deepest shames, their most vulnerable moments, were now gathering to make small talk about the weather or if A key challenge for the author I think will be to show that he can move on in his writing (in his third novel which I believe is to be set in the Hebrides) but for now this is an excellent companion piece to his Booker a prize winning book. Bear in mind that this is called ‘Young Mungo’, which clearly signposts the boundaries of the novel’s scope. Equally clear is that the ending is likely to irritate those same readers who were annoyed at how ‘Shuggie Bain’ ended. Or, rather, petered out (me included, though I am more ambivalent about the ending of this book).He grew up in Glasgow, from a working class-dysfunctional-protestant family. His sister, Jodie is only a year older—but she adopted the role as surrogate-mother to Mungo. (for good reasons)…Jodie doesn’t want Mungo to turn out like their older brother, Hamish- a gang leader. (personally, I loved Jodie’s character). Yes, it seems cold and uncomfortable and discouraging, but at the same time, there is warmth and love and hope. I heard the author say that the anxiety and chewing on things (including remotes!) comes from his own experience. He sure does understand all of these people, and somehow, he escaped, so that gives me hope that it is possible. I never read Shuggie Bain but saw it got lots of accolades. So, I was excited to listen to Stuart’s second book, Young Mungo. But I really struggled with it. It’s not a bad book. In fact, it’s incredibly well written. But it’s such a sad, deep, dark, ugly, depressing story, I had to force myself to keep with it at times.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, after receiving his MA from the Royal College of Art in London, he has lived and worked in New York City. Yet despite the multifarious frustrations, and even at its most overexplicit and overwrought, Young Mungo is the work of a true novelist. Bizarre technique cannot crowd out the energy of Stuart’s characters or the organic force of his teeming world. At times he recalls Dostoevsky, in whose work the powerful exists alongside the galumphing. Mungo’s predicament is piercing, and as the story draws to a close, a spectral beauty prevails. I didn’t mind visiting Google. It was part of the pleasure. Besides, I already knew the Scottish talk funny…..with euphemisms being - both -charming and offensive.To my younger self. I was incredibly self-loathing and self-doubting, and I’m still undoing that damage 30 years later. A touching, tender tale of boy meets boy in the bleak tenements of Glasgow . . . Superb' – The Times ‘Best Summer Reading’ with some of the most gorgeous writing and intimate storytelling there ever was. From tender to bloodthirsty brutal…..