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    Shuggie Bain: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Shuggie Bain: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Shuggie Bain: A Novel
    Audiobook17 hours

    Shuggie Bain: A Novel

    Written by Douglas Stuart

    Narrated by Angus King

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    This is the unforgettable story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.

    Shuggie’s mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie’s guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good—her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion’s share of each week’s benefits—all the family has to live on—on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs.

    Agnes’s older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Meanwhile, Shuggie is struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is “no right,” a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her—even her beloved Shuggie.

    A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction.

    Editor's Note

    Booker Prize winner…

    Winner of the 2020 Booker Prize. A deeply sympathetic story about poverty and addiction in 1980s Glasgow, and a cutting look at the impact of Thatcherism in Scotland. The titular character, the young Shuggie Bain, is desperate to escape the trappings of being poor and attain that elusive status of “normal”; his mother, Agnes, wants to stay sober but keeps falling back into alcoholism. “Challenging, intimate and gripping … anyone who reads it will never feel the same,” said the Booker Prize judges.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateFeb 11, 2020
    ISBN9781690564614
    Unavailable
    Shuggie Bain: A Novel
    Author

    Douglas Stuart

    Douglas Stuart was born and raised in Glasgow. After graduating from the Royal College of Art, he moved to New York, where he began a career in fashion design. Shuggie Bain, his first novel, won the Booker Prize and both 'Debut of the Year' and 'Book of The Year' at the British Book Awards. It was also shortlisted for the US National Book Award for Fiction, among many other awards. His short stories have appeared in the New Yorker and his essay on gender, anxiety and class was published by Lit Hub. He divides his time between New York and Glasgow. Young Mungo is his second novel.

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      Anyone embarking on this wonderful novel needs to be prepared to have their heart broken and their soul uplifted at the same time. This is the story of Shuggie Bain, a sweet young boy grappling with his sexuality in the unrelentingly grim poverty of

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    Reviews for Shuggie Bain

    4.5/5

    127 ratings10 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 4/5
      Well, this one will certainly stick with you. It was an uncomfortable read, partly to do with the descriptions that I swear even had smells, and also because it provokes so much thought.
    • 5/5
      Tragic. So fantastically tragic. A supremely written piece with such punch that one wonders the fine line between its fiction and fact. I look forward to Douglas’ second book already.
    • 5/5
      Best audio book ever thanks to Stuart for his narration
    • 5/5
      The narrator made this sad and beautifully written story come alive. Heartbreaking and beautiful.
    • 5/5
      The best book I read last year. It was sad though. It was very difficult for poor people to live through the reign of the milk snatcher...
      Sharon Breen
      New Brunswick
      Canada
    • 4/5
      Beautifully crafted story of bleak impoverished childhood of a boy growing up struggling with his own gender issues while deeply heartbreakingly devoted to his mother who could or would not give up the drink and a father who no long wanted to be tethered to his stunning yet deeply enraged addicted wife while making sure she was abandoned and isolated away from community, family and friends closing her off from any chance of recovery or love.
    • 5/5
      Devastating and at the same time hopeful, Shuggie is both political and deeply apolitical, deconstructing the ills produced by Thatcher era neoliberalism while centering its narrative on the life of a young boy navigating a relentlessly cruel world, unaware of the superstructures imposed around him. The book tackles queerness, mental illness, poverty, and gender with a unique intersectionality that is also honest with itself, refusing to accept the myth of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” and instead presenting those bootstraps as chains that are difficult If not impossible to doff. The book is worth its length and the narration is wonderful. Shuggie is undoubtedly one of the best books written for all readers, but especially for those who can identify with its characters’ class, gender, and sexual identities.
    • 4/5
      Surprising standout in my 2020 reading list. Shuggie and Agnes will stay with you long after you've finished. The story covers addiction, family dysfunction, and being poor dependent on the state. Most standout theme for me is the relationship you have with your mother and when things are as bad as they can be Shuggie loves Agnes unconditionally and his big brother gives him the brutal truth about what will happen to Agnes if she doesn't stop drinking leading to a heartbreaking choice Shuggie made to save his mother, it was just a beautiful book in all ways. It loses a star because I felt someones character should have been opened up more after so much.
    • 5/5
      This was one of the saddest books I ever read. I could feel the pain of Agnes and Shuggie and the rest of the family. I found myself cheering for Agnes. A great book but very sad
    • 5/5
      Touching insight to world of an alcoholic and family

      1 person found this helpful