Praise for Shuggie Bain: WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE New York Times Bestseller Winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction Finalist for the National Book Award Finalist for the Kirkus Prize Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel Finalist for the L.A. Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction Named one of Sunday Times''s 25 best novels of the 21st century Named the Best Book of the Year at the British Book Awards 2021 Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize The Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year 2020 Shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Breakthrough Author Award Named a Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times, NPR, TIME, BuzzFeed, the Economist, the Times (UK), the Independent (UK), the Daily Telegraph (UK), Barnes & Noble, Kirkus Reviews, the New York Public Library, the Chicago Public Library, and the Washington Independent Review of Books "We were bowled over by this first novel, which creates an amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love. The book gives a vivid glimpse of a marginalized, impoverished community in a bygone era of British history. It''s a desperately sad, almost-hopeful examination of family and the destructive powers of desire."--Booker Prize Judges "This year''s breakout debut . It has drawn comparisons to D.H.
Lawrence, James Joyce, and Frank McCourt."--Alexandra Alter, New York Times "I''m really, really stunned by it. It''s so good. I think it''s the best first book I''ve read in many years . It''s a heartbreaking story, and quite hard to read at times, but it''s almost like it''s uplifting on behalf of literature. And it''s written with great warmth and compassion for the characters."--Karl Ove Knausgaard, Guardian "The body--especially the body in pain--blazes on the pages of Shuggie Bain . This is the world of Shuggie Bain, a little boy growing up in Glasgow in the 1980s.
And this is the world of Agnes Bain, his glamorous, calamitous mother, drinking herself ever so slowly to death. The wonder is how crazily, improbably alive it all is . The book would be just about unbearable were it not for the author''s astonishing capacity for love. He''s lovely, Douglas Stuart, fierce and loving and lovely. He shows us lots of monstrous behavior, but not a single monster--only damage. If he has a sharp eye for brokenness, he is even keener on the inextinguishable flicker of love that remains . The book leaves us gutted and marveling: Life may be short, but it takes forever."--Leah Hager Cohen, New York Times Book Review "A debut novel that reads like a masterpiece.
"--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."--Scott Simon, NPR''s "Weekend Edition" "Agnes Bain [is] the unforgettable human train wreck at the center of Douglas Stuart''s novel Shuggie Bain . Titling the novel after Shuggie rather than the woman who dominates him seems like a small gesture of defiance on Mr. Stuart''s part . Mr. Stuart vividly inhabits the city''s singular ''Weegie'' dialect and vocabulary . It''s the obstinate Bain pride that prevents this novel from becoming a wallow in victimhood and gives it its ruined dignity."--Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal "The domestic spaces, the blighted landscape, the meanness of people, the bullying at school, the constant threat of violence, all add up to a picture of misery.
Against this, however, there is an undercurrent that becomes more and more powerful, as Stuart, with great subtlety, builds up an aura of tenderness in the relationship between helpless Shuggie and his even more helpless mother . By drawing Agnes and Shuggie with so much texture, he makes clear that neither mother nor son can be easily seen as a victim. Instead, they emerge forcefully; they are fully, palpably present."--Colm Tóibín, Bookforum "Astonishingly good, one of the most moving novels in recent memory."--Hillary Kelly, Los Angeles Times "The tough portraits of Glaswegian working-class life from William McIlvanney, James Kelman, Alasdair Gray, and Agnes Owens can be felt in Shuggie Bain without either overshadowing or unbalancing the novel . Stuart''s capacity for allowing wild contradictions to convincingly coexist is also on display in the individual vignettes that comprise the novel, blending the tragic with the funny, the unsparing with the tender, the compassionate with the excruciating. He can even pull off all of them in a single sentence . This overwhelmingly vivid novel is not just an accomplished debut.
It also feels like a moving act of filial reverence."--James Walton, New York Review of Books "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 . Reading Shuggie Bain entails a kind of archaeology, sifting through the rubble of the lives presented to find gems of consolation, brief sublime moments when the characters slip the bonds of their hardscrabble existence. That the book is never dismal or maudlin, notwithstanding its subject matter, is down to the buoyant life of its two principal characters, the heart and humanity with which they are described. Douglas Stuart has written a first novel of rare and lasting beauty."--Alex Preston, Guardian "Douglas Stuart drags us through the 1980s childhood of ''a soft boy in a hard world'' in a series of vivid, effective scenes . Shuggie Bain is a novel that aims for the heart and finds it. As a novel it''s good, as a debut very good, and I wouldn''t be surprised to see it progress from Booker longlist to shortlist.
"--John Self, Times (UK) "Not only does [Stuart] clearly know his characters, he clearly loves them . Stuart describes their life with compassion and a keen ear for language . Such is Stuart''s talent that this painful, sometimes excruciating story is often quite beautiful."--Barbara Lane, San Francisco Chronicle "Shuggie Bain is Douglas Stuart''s first novel, as intense and excruciating to read as any novel I have ever held in my hand . This novel is as much about Glasgow as it is about Shuggie and his impossible mother . The book''s evocative power arises out of the author''s talent for conjuring a place, a time, and the texture of emotion, and out of its language which is strewn with a Glaswegian argot sodden with desolation and misery . This is a hard, grim book, brilliantly written and, in the end, worth the pain which accompanies reading it."--Katherine A.
Powers, Newsday "With his exquisitely detailed debut novel, Douglas Stuart has given Glasgow something of what James Joyce gave to Dublin. 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 slang ringing in your ears . It turns over the ugly side of humanity to find the softness and the beauty underneath . This beauty, against all odds, survives."--Eliza Gearty, Jacobin "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. It''s a formidable story, lyrically told, about intimacy, family, and love."--Elle "A dysfunctional love story--an interdependence whose every attempt to thrive is poisoned whenever a drink is poured--but here, between a boy and his mother. Stuart''s debut stands out for its immersion into working-class Glaswegian life, but what makes his book a worthy contender for the Booker is his portrayal of their bond, together with all its perpetual damage.
"--Maria Crawford, Financial Times "Magnificent . Its richly rendered events will give you a lot to talk about."--O Magazine "This is a panoramic portrait of both a family and a place, and Stuart steeps us fully in the grim decline of the Thatcher years: cheap booze, closed pits and lives lived on tick . Tender and unsentimental--a rare trick--and the Billy Elliot-ish character of Shuggie, when he does take the floor, leaps off the page."--Stephanie Cross, Daily Mail "Terrifically engrossing . A cracking coming-of-age story--a survivor''s tale you won''t be able to put down."--Anthony Cummins, Metro "A heartbreaking story about identity, addiction, and abandonment."--TIME "An instant classic.
A novel that takes place during the Thatcher years and, in a way, defines it. A novel that explores the underbelly of Scottish society. A novel that digs through the grit and grime of 1980s Glasgow to reveal a story that is at once touching and gripping. Think D.H. Lawrence. Think James Joyce . A literary tour de force.
"--Washington Independent Review of Books "Douglas''s sharp narrative perspective moves from character to character, depicting each internally and externally with astute grace, giving a complex understanding of the dynamics of the Bain family . Shuggie Bain is a master class in depicting the blinding dedications of love and the endless bounds to which people will go to feel in control, to feel better. It hopefully sets the tone for more beautifully devastating works of fiction to follow from Stuart.