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Young Mungo
by Douglas Stuart
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Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation. They should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all, and yet they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the dovecote that James has built for his prize racing pigeons. As they begin to fall in love, they dream of escaping the grey city, and Mungo must work hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his elder brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. But the threat of discovery is constant and the punishment unspeakable.…
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"Douglas Stuart’s debut novel, Shuggie Bain, won a raft of awards, including the 2020 Booker Prize. I liked his second novel, Young Mungo, even more than its older sibling. The books do feel like brothers, with similar settings (Glasgow in the late 20th century) and characters (an alcoholic mother, a gay son). Young Mungo centers on a forbidden romance between two young men – one Catholic, one Protestant – and is full of pain and beauty. But as Stuart told me, “If ever I write about violence or heartbreak or sadness, I’m really only doing that to make the tenderness and the love shine more.”"
"Looking ahead, April offers an embarrassment of riches. Douglas Stuart is due to release his second novel, the breathlessly anticipated follow up to his Booker Prize-winning, million-copy-selling debut Shuggie Bain ; Young Mungo has been described as a working class Romeo and Juliet , in which two men from either side of Glasgow’s sectarian divide fall in love for the first time. The first review just dropped (Kirkus says it’s “romantic, terrifying, brutal, tender, and, in the end, sneakily hopeful”) so get your pre-orders in pronto. I’m also very excited about Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House , which is a ‘sibling novel’ for her remarkable novel-in-stories A Visit From the Goon Squad , which must be one of my favourite-ever books. Emily St John Mandel (author of that most beautiful of post-apocalyptic novels Station Eleven , another from my all-time top ten) will publish Sea of Tranquility , a time travel book that leaps from the Canadian wilderness to a colony on the moon—a perfect book for people like me, who love those books that fall into the science fiction–literary fiction intersection on the publishing Venn diagram. There’s also Companion Piece by the great Ali Smith to look forward to, her follow-up to her beloved Seasonal Quartet, and Julian Barnes ‘ Elizabeth Finch , a portrait of an intellectual crush."