Shuggie Bain is a powerful portrayal of working class life in Glasgow under Thatcher and afterward. It is very well written and completely convincing...and pretty unremittingly grim. As a result, I struggled with it; it’s a book I felt I ought to read rather than one I wanted to.
Douglas Stuart paints intimate and compelling portraits of a family including philandering father, an alcoholic mother and a young lad with a good heart who is lost, who has had to choose between school and earning to eat, who is intimidated by the world and who does not understand his own sexuality. It’s raw and important, but frankly, I can only take so much alcoholism, misogyny and alienation in perpetual rain and gloom and I got very bogged down in it.
I’ve given the book three stars because I can see that it’s well written and deals important stuff, but as a readable novel I can only give it a very qualified recommendation.
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