Book review: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

When I was 20, I tried to write a story about an alcoholic man. I was in my Hemingway phase where I read every single thing by him, and so my one true sentence, the truest sentence I knew, had more or less to do with the bottom of a glass. Which, in reality, I knew approximately nothing about.

Luckily, I realised halfway through that I was glorifying alcoholism, and I knew this wouldn’t serve me or anyone else who’d ever read the story, so I gave up.

Shuggie Bain is a heartbreaking, raw reminder that I was right - that I could’ve never delivered what I was trying to deliver, because I derived my idea of alcoholism entirely from cold, over-romanticised Parisian nights. I’m lucky that I didn’t have a more accurate example to look to, but Douglas Stuart wasn’t, which is why his book is so great.

This Scottish debut chronicles the life of young Shuggie Bain and his family in 1980s working class Glasgow. As the family struggles with poverty, addiction, and a life on benefits, Shuggie grapples his own demons in a place and time where no one else is like him. At the heart of the narrative, however, isn’t Shuggie himself, but his alcoholic, stubborn, always well-presented mother, Agnes.

Agnes Bain as a character is built with so much care and precision that there isn’t a single thing she does or says that doesn’t make sense. Her refusal to be seen outside without makeup or hairspray, her fierce protection and understanding of Shuggie, and her private struggles mark her as one of the best, most complex characters written.

I admired her, hated her, wanted her to live and wanted her to die, and her story was the sort of gut-wrenching life lesson that I will carry deep inside of me.

Whether a product of her circumstances and the people who surround her or not, her addiction is portrayed exceptionally well in a book that is based on Stuart’s own childhood. The relationship between mother and youngest son is the core strength of this novel. Their idiosyncrasies within the home are those that drew me in the most - the awkward, familial touches, the freedom, the constant struggle. It was all so real, so true. I wanted there to be more to the two of them, and still, every time they got a moment together, I wanted to look away - such is the height of Stuart’s ability to portray the tug-of-war of emotions between mother and son.

The story itself is incredibly sad, the content harsh and unflinching, and the writing so atmospheric in a rough, grimy way, that I could not look away.

The portrayal of men especially makes this an ugly read - not that the women are any better, but it is the 80s, and men still hold much of the power within the family dynamics. With no respectful, admirable men within these pages, touching young boys and raping women and ruthlessly taking advantage of whatever situation they’re presented with becomes the norm the further into the book you go. The culmination, the antidote - the promise of a way out and of happiness - comes in the shape a short-term boyfriend, whom, by the end, I despised more than some of the much rougher, slimier characters. He might not touch little boys or force himself on anyone, but by virtue of his personality, of wanting his relationship and Agnes within it to appear as normal as possible, he makes possibly the most horrible act of the whole book. For this, I could not forgive him.

From its atmospheric neighbourhoods to the very corners of both Agnes’s and Shuggie’s hearts, this incredible debut shows the reader just what it is love can do - and what it is even love can’t save.

If you don’t mind reading about the harsh reality of the world of addiction, then this is definitely a book I’d recommend.