Shuggie Bain: Winner of the Booker Prize 2020 - Kindle edition by Stuart, Douglas. Recalling the work of Édouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell. Douglas Stuart, author of the longlisted debut Shuggie Bain, may hold an American passport, but his novel is resolutely, wonderfully Scottish at heart. -- Alex Preston * Observer * Leaves us gutted and marvelling: Life may be short, but it takes forever. I was looking to buy this book, but I couldn’t get a clear idea about the main themes. Leah Hager Cohen, New York Times Book Review, “A debut novel that reads like a masterpiece.” Bethanne Patrick, Washington Post, “Agnes Bain [is] the unforgettable human train wreck at the center of Douglas Stuart’s novel Shuggie Bain . A24 and Scott Rudin Productions have won the rights to Douglas Stuart’s highly acclaimed debut novel, Shuggie Bain, with plans to adapt for television. * Daily Telegraph * Rarely does a debut novel establish its world with such sure-footedness, and Stuart's prose is lithe, lyrical and full of revelatory descriptive insights. Agency flickers and goes out; Catherine gets away, but Stuart signals that this offstage escape to 1980s South Africa is only participation in another form of oppression. Recalling the work of Édouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell. In six wide-ranging essays, Kathleen Hale traces some of the most treacherous fault lines in This debut novel tells us how he got here. Stuart’s prose is baroque, rich in adjectives with a habit of pointing out what he’s just shown. PRAISE FOR SHUGGIE BAIN ... Washington Post 'The way Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting carved a permanent place in our heads and hearts for the junkies of late-1980s Edinburgh, the language, imagery, and story of fashion designer Stuart's debut novel apotheosizes the life of the Bain family of Glasgow . Shuggie Bain Douglas Stuart Review by Mari Carlson. More best-of lists: Science fiction, fantasy and horror | Thrillers and mysteries | Romance novels | Graphic novels | Audiobooks | Children’s books | Poetry collections. And because this was a year like no other, we looked back at the most 2020 books of 2020, from prescient science fiction novels to political tell-alls. Every city needs a book like Shuggie Bain, one where the powers of description are so strong you can almost smell the chip-fat and pub-smoke steaming from its pages, and hear the particular, localized … We first meet Shuggie Bain as a 16-year-old in 1992, living alone in a dirty bedsit on the Southside of Glasgow and working on a supermarket deli counter where his boss overlooks lapses in hygiene because underage labour is cheap. He finally sold it to Grove Atlantic, and the novel, “Shuggie Bain,” drew rapturous reviews. . . The craft that has gone into the prose honours the hours of labour and suggests a painstaking effort to be accurate and true. Back to 1981 and Agnes Bain is leaning from the window of the high-rise council block where she, her second husband and her three children live “all crammed together in her mammy’s flat”. Writing in The Observer, Alex Preston said: "Rarely does a debut novel establish its world with such sure-footedness, and Stuart's prose is lithe, lyrical and full of revelatory descriptive insights. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Shuggie Bain comes from a deep understanding of the relationship between a child and a substance-abusing parent, showing a world rarely portrayed in literary fiction, and to that extent it’s admirable and important. Alone, Agnes remembers an early holiday together in Blackpool, Shug dragging her up the stairs of a cheap B&B by her hair when she was too drunk to walk, raping her and then offering to take her dancing the next night. Written in the most glorious prose, its beat and buoyancy is delivered by Dominic Hoffman, a master at capturing the rhythm of backchat and in rendering Brooklynese, Southern and Spanish speech. “An atmospheric epic set in 1980s working-class Glasgow, Shuggie Bain, a debut novel by Douglas Stuart, focuses on the relationship between a mother and son as she battles alcoholism and he grapples with his sexuality. (Dreamscape, Unabridged, 11⅔ hours), Stuart’s debut is a brilliant, heart-rending work set in decaying working-class neighborhoods around Glasgow of the Thatcher era. Agnes descends through the degrading stages of alcoholism, ever more vulnerable to ever more predatory men, her only constant relationships with her children, whose knowledge of her disintegration is therefore intimate. The emotional truth embodied here will crack you open. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart Grove Press, 2020. In the first chapter we meet Shuggie post the events of the story so we have a fair idea throughout what the outcome will be regarding Shuggie's alcoholic mum, Agnes. . ... Kirkus Reviews, the New York Public Library, the Chicago Public Library, and the Washington Independent Review of Books “The body—especially the body in pain—blazes on the pages of Shuggie Bain. This is a story about poverty, addiction and abuse. 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. The book is a fictional version of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians’ struggle to quash the U.S. government’s attempt to rip up treaties and destroy Native American rights, a campaign led by Erdrich’s grandfather, personified here in the fictional reservation-born Thomas Wazhack. 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. September 15, 2020 heaneymedia Argyll and Bute, Balloch, BOOK REVIEWS, Dumbarton, Helensburgh, Latest News, Scotland Wide, West Dunbartonshire Leave a comment. This clears it up, and it sounds lovely! In poverty-stricken 1980s Glasgow, Agnes is the beloved daughter of hardworking Catholics. The author captures the life of a little boy growing up perfectly, and all the gross things one has to go through in that life. The book is very well written and the problem Stuart now has is the second “album”. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Shuggie Bain: Winner of the Booker Prize 2020. Winner of the 2020 Booker Prize ‘Shuggie Bain’ is the debut novel by Scottish-American writer Douglas Stuart. Alexander, “Leek”, a gifted artist who carries around with him a two-year-old letter offering him a university place, stays to try to teach Shuggie how to “act normal” – ie, appear to conform to the norms of working-class Glaswegian masculinity, which does not come naturally. He's lovely, Douglas Stuart, fierce a… There are characters you will hate and characters you will come to love. Reviewing for The New York Times, Leah Hager Cohenwrote that "the book would be just about unbearable were it not for the author's astonishing capacity for love. At a time when many people just need a happy ending, we also rounded up the best feel-good books of the year. I had qualms, about Shuggie’s precocity and particularly about the depiction of women, who are all scrawny or flabby, wearing too much makeup or not enough, and whose clothes are always wrong – “tight leggings” suggest loose morals while “baggy leggings” show slovenliness. . It’s a formidable story, lyrically told, about intimacy, family, and love.” Shug senior moves the family from the urban flat to the post-industrial wasteland of a pit village, a vague and hopeless gesture towards removing Agnes from her suppliers and companions, but the landscapes of despair left by mine closures promote nothing but sickness. Shuggie Bain - PRAISE FOR SHUGGIE BAIN ... Washington Post 'The way Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting carved a permanent place in our heads and hearts for the junkies of late-1980s Edinburgh, the language, imagery, and story of fashion designer Stuart's debut novel apotheosizes the life of the Bain family of Glasgow . The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. Anna Chancellor pipes up on occasion as the warm voice of Ellen Terry, Stoker’s friend and Irving’s leading lady. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Tretheway’s narration is elegiac in remembering her mother — and steely as she reads the chilling transcripts of her mother’s telephone conversations with her killer. Shuggie and Leek learn to undress Agnes after a night out, to look away from her bruised thighs and gouged breasts, to catch vomit and wipe bile. I love this review. e first meet Shuggie Bain as a 16-year-old in 1992, living alone in a dirty bedsit on the Southside of Glasgow and working on a supermarket deli counter where his boss overlooks lapses in hygiene because underage labour is cheap. - Bethanne Patrick, Washington Post "A novel that cracks open the human heart, brings you inside, tears you up, and brings you up, with its episodes of unvarnished love, loss, survival and sorrow." And that's the real achievement of this book: to see how they struggle in the hardest reality and how they still continue to hope and come through somehow. “Sportcoat” is a 71-year-old deacon who lives in a Brooklyn housing project in 1969. 2 thoughts on “Shuggie Bain — Book Review” thefeministwriterwhogoesmeh says: December 1, 2020 at 3:11 am. The emotional truth embodied here will crack you open. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart review – a rare and gritty debut. Stuart says he spent 10 years working on Shuggie Bain, often writing while during commutes into New York, where he has lived for two decades. (Penguin Audio, Unabridged, 14 hours), In this piercing investigation of memory, loss and love, former U.S. poet laureateTrethewey shares the story of her mother’s murder by her second husband, a violent, manipulative sadist. Shuggie Bain has been longlisted for the Booker Prize. “The black slag hills stretched for miles like the waves of a petrified sea.” Shuggie attends school in Pithead just enough to be bullied – not because of his mother’s drinking, which is common enough, but because he doesn’t move like a boy, doesn’t like football, can’t hide his fascination for hairdressing, dolls and My Little Ponies. February 11, 2020 Witness the tragic descent of Agnes Bain through the loving eyes of her youngest son, Shuggie. There’s heroism in Agnes’s commitment to self-presentation and domestic order, holding on to her lipstick and tights as her liver packs up, making sure the house is immaculate before the next rapist stops by; and something sadder than heroism in Shuggie’s passion for his disintegrating mother, which is not a choice but a fact. This is a world with no vocabulary for sexual consent; men do what they do and women and boys like it or lump it. Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain brings us to 1980s Glasgow and contains all the joie de vivre that you’d expect from a novel set in 1980s Glasgow. In a just world, it would win. Shuggie Bain is the debut novel by Scottish-American writer Douglas Stuart, published in 2020. Shuggie Bain is his first novel. This is a memorable book about family, violence and sexuality." . It tells the story of the youngest of the three children, Shuggie, growing up with his alcoholic mother, Agnes, in the 1980s, in Thatcher-era post-industrial working-class Glasgow, Scotland. . Shuggie is a gentle boy trying to manage his melodramatic, self-destructive alcoholic mother. Katherine A. 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. to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Stuart’s genius at evoking place, predicament and intense emotional states, is wonderfully served by narrator Angus King, a Scotsman himself whose moderate but intelligible Glaswegian accent brings further authenticity. Reading Shuggie Bain cannot but be a grim experience. . PRAISE FOR SHUGGIE BAIN 'A debut novel that reads like a masterpiece, Shuggie Bain gives voice to the kind of helpless, hopeless love that children can feel toward broken parents.' “For me, ‘Shuggie Bain’ is a love story,” Stuart, 44, said during an interview on a drizzly day in downtown Manhattan this month. (HarperAudio, Unabridged, 5¼ hours), Erdrich reads her own moving and inspiring novel wonderfully, enhancing the text with the sincerity of her Native-American inflected voice. This is an arena of closed coal pits and industrial plants, of unemployment, idleness and alcoholism. The life is one of smoking, drinking and arguing. Delivery charges may apply. Can he … To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. 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