Shuggie Bain

Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain (Picador, 2020) The winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain tells the story of a Glaswegian family caught in a vicious spiral of alcohol addiction.  The two main characters are Shuggie Bain and his alcoholic mother Agnes.  There is a strong sense of autobiography running through the novel.  This gives everything and extra poignancy, but also results in frequent questions of ‘did that really happen?’ which occasionally get in the way.  One or two episodes verge slightly on the unbelievable, perhaps a result of the selective information we’re given about certain characters.  There are also several episodes of editorial narration (New Year is big in Scotland, we’re told, and there is a big rivalry between Rangers and Celtic) which seems intended for an American audience and breaks the flow of the narrative.  But overall, this is an excellent book.  It is very sad, but there are also elements of hope, which at least in part of connected to its autobiographical character.  It perhaps verges on the edge of ‘poverty porn’, but its realism and sadness means this never goes too far