Shuggie Bain

Shuggie Bain is the debut novel by Scottish-American writer Douglas Stuart, published in 2020. It tells the story of the youngest of three children, Shuggie, growing up with his alcoholic mother Agnes in 1980s post-industrial working-class Glasgow. The novel was awarded the 2020 Booker Prize, making Stuart the second Scottish winner of the prize in its 51-year history, following James Kelman in 1994. Shuggie Bain was also a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction, the 2021 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the 2020 John Leonard Prize for Best First Book from the National Book Critics Circle. It was also selected as a notable book by the American Library Association on their 2021 ALA Notable lists for adult fiction. It is written in English, but dialogue is in Scots. As of April 2022, the novel has sold more than 1.5 million copies globally. Plot The novel opens in 1992, when Hugh "Shuggie" Bain is 15 years old. He lives alone in a boarding house in Glasgow, working shifts at a supermarket deli, and aspires to be a hairdresser. He leaves work, placing tin cans of fish in his bag. In 1981, five-year-old Shuggie is living in a tenement flat in Sighthill with his maternal grandparents, Wullie and Lizzie; his mother, Agnes Bain; his father, Hugh "Shug" Bain; his half-brother, Leek; and his half-sister, Catherine. Shuggie's father is mostly absent, working as a cab driver and having affairs with other women. Agnes is a beautiful woman often compared to Elizabeth Taylor, but she is unfulfilled by her life and takes to drinking.