Young Mungo
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- 10,99 €
Publisher Description
A story of queer love and working-class families, Young Mungo is the brilliant second novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain
Acclaimed as one of the best books of the year by NPR, Kirkus Reviews, Time, and Amazon, and named a Top 10 Book of the Year by the Washington Post, Young Mungo is a brilliantly constructed and deeply moving story of queer love and working-class families by the Booker Prize–winning author of Shuggie Bain. Growing up in a housing estate in Glasgow, Mungo and James are born under different stars—Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic—and they should be sworn enemies. Yet against all odds, they fall in love as they find sanctuary and dream of escape in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. But when Mungo’s mother sends him on a fishing trip to a remote loch with two strange men, he will need all his strength and courage to find his way back to a place where he and James might still have a future.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Set in the macho world of 1980s Glasgow, Young Mungo is a tear-jerking tale of queer love blooming in the most unexpected of places. Raised in a Protestant family with a gang leader brother and an absent, alcoholic mother, the soft and sensitive 15-year-old Mungo is a total misfit. But after he meets kindred spirit James, a Catholic boy who loves raising pigeons, an unlikely relationship blossoms between them in spite of their religious differences (not to mention society’s prejudices). Author Douglas Stuart (whose Shuggie Bain won the Man Booker Prize in 2020) paints a formidable portrait of working-class life in Thatcher-era Scotland, with crisp writing that captures every detail of Mungo’s hardscrabble existence. In one scene where Mungo is sent away to “man up” on a fishing trip, Stuart captures his emotions in particularly exquisite detail, with every gesture and vocal tic telling us something about his character. Keep some tissues handy—this coming-of-age romance is destined to become an iconic work of 21st-century literature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The astonishing sophomore effort from Booker Prize winner Stuart (Shuggie Bain) details a teen's hard life in north Glasgow in the post-Thatcher years. Mungo is 15, the youngest of three Protestant siblings growing up in one of the city's poverty-stricken "schemes." The children's alcoholic mother leaves them periodically for a married man with children of his own. Mungo's father is long gone, and Mungo's sister, Jodie, looks after their household as best she can. Hamish, Mungo's hooligan brother and ringleader of a gang of Protestant Billy Boys, is a constant threat to Mungo, who, tender of heart and profoundly lonely, is at the mercy of his violent moods. Even after Mungo meets the kindred James, a Catholic boy who keeps pigeons, he is overwhelmed by his self-loathing, assuming all the calamity around him is somehow his fault. He doesn't have a clue what it is he wants. All he knows is that amid the blood and alcohol and spittle-sprayed violence of his daily existence, James is a gentle, calming respite. Their friendship is the center of this touching novel, but it also leads to a terrifying and tragic intervention. Stuart's writing is stellar—a man's voice sounds "like he had a throatful of dry toast"; a boy has "ribs like the hull of an upturned boat." He's too fine a storyteller to go for a sentimental ending, and the final act leaves the reader gutted. This is unbearably sad, more so because the reader comes to cherish the characters their creator has brought to life. It's a sucker punch to the heart.
