by
DOUGLAS STUART
Published
US: Grove Press (hardcover) Feb 2020
UK: Picador (hardcover) Aug 2020.
India: Picador 2020
Rs.499 Pages 448
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"Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! Dead! Dead! Dead!" Scots chanting on the 8th of April, 2013 when Margaret Thatcher died. There was a celebration.
Earlier, on 12th October, 1984, when an explosion rocked the hotel she was in, and she escaped death, the Glaswegian dialect left no doubt about their frustrated fury: "Shit disnae burn, Maggie won't."
There’s sadness all around, and misery. There’s pervasive poverty and hopelessness. Perhaps arising from a very personal exposure to the complexities described in the story. Perhaps not. But there’s resilient hope and there’s uncompromising love. And that takes the book out of the ordinary.
Marvellously Gloomy. Depressingly Heart-warming. Another of those “sweetest songs” รก la Shelley, “that tell of saddest thought”.
The book has won the Man Booker Prize (announced on 20th November, 2020); it has also been shortlisted by the Centre for Fiction – First Novel Prize; it appears in the Longlist of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction (2021), and is a Finalist in the National Book Award for Fiction and the Kirkus Prize for Fiction.
"Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! Dead! Dead! Dead!" Scots chanting on the 8th of April, 2013 when Margaret Thatcher died. There was a celebration.
Earlier, on 12th October, 1984, when an explosion rocked the hotel she was in, and she escaped death, the Glaswegian dialect left no doubt about their frustrated fury: "Shit disnae burn, Maggie won't."
The Scots believed that Thatcher was responsible for the devastating economic collapse of Glasgow; her adherence to “Monetarism”, whatever it may have meant to professional Economists, only spelt stark and massive unemployment for working-class Scotland; it precipitated the decade-old downward trend of the economy. Then she brought in Poll Tax (aka Community Charge) in Scotland – reviving the hated, revolt-inducing cess of the 14th century, which was based on the rentable value of one’s house, and not on one’s ability to pay.
What has all this got to do with Shuggie Bain, the book under review?
First, the novel is set in Glasgow – which bore the brunt of Thatcher’s policies. Second, the story begins in 1981 when Shuggie (Scottish for Hugh) is around 5 years old, and ends in 1992, when he asserts that he is above 16 – roughly coinciding with the Thatcher’s tenure as PM in the UK.
So, when the blurb (quoting the Observer) says: “Heartbreakingly good” you set yourself up to a grim tale about a mother’s soul-bruising deterioration as an alcoholic, and the dog-like, unquestioning devotion of Shuggie, her youngest son turned caregiver at the tender age of 13. And the whole narrative is “complicated” by Shuggie’s teenage struggle to come to terms with his ambiguous sexuality – his attempts at understanding his “difference” runs apace with his mother’s progressive loss of any sense of the world around her. It is a story of love beyond hope, of hope beyond trust, and trust beyond a love that increasingly ceased to have any meaning to anyone except Shuggie.
Agnes Bain, a mother of three, is alcohol-dependent. Her husband, Shug declares: “I can’t stay with you. All your wanting. All that drinking,” and he walks out; Stuart describes the scene so vividly (“like a party dress that had been dropped on the floor”) that the image lingers in your mind for a long time.
Her drinking worsens … the eldest daughter “escapes” to South Africa, the elder son moves out, hoping to make a career for himself. Shuggie stays on. When she decides to give up alcohol, for a brief period the whole house and its surroundings brighten up; there is also a hope that a new found love will get her through – but one fatal relapse, and she’s downhill again.
In the mean time Shuggie gets into school – gets ridiculed for his “difference”, his “proper” behaviour and his language, sadly reminiscent of Blanch DuBois from Tennessee Williams’ A Street Car Named Desire; and to some extent of Dickens’ Christmas Carol. But regardless of what life throws at him, Shuggie’s devotion to his mother is absolute: no matter that he has to stand in line for the weekly dole where his mother should have been; no matter that he had to pry coins out of the gas meter for his daily meals.
What is also striking is the dark landscape where the skyline is marked by dunes of coal dust, and abandoned mines. It is as if Glasgow tries to stand proud among its many ruins just as Agnes stands through her poverty and misery. And then there is the almost-colourful depiction of the wise-cracking women who carry on with their lives with their broken husbands (emasculated by unemployment but not averse to a fling now and then). Alcohol opens her to sexual abuse too – while Shuggie hopes to “save” her … and he clings to this hope till the end ... in spite of all the selfishness he sees around him.
What has all this got to do with Shuggie Bain, the book under review?
First, the novel is set in Glasgow – which bore the brunt of Thatcher’s policies. Second, the story begins in 1981 when Shuggie (Scottish for Hugh) is around 5 years old, and ends in 1992, when he asserts that he is above 16 – roughly coinciding with the Thatcher’s tenure as PM in the UK.
So, when the blurb (quoting the Observer) says: “Heartbreakingly good” you set yourself up to a grim tale about a mother’s soul-bruising deterioration as an alcoholic, and the dog-like, unquestioning devotion of Shuggie, her youngest son turned caregiver at the tender age of 13. And the whole narrative is “complicated” by Shuggie’s teenage struggle to come to terms with his ambiguous sexuality – his attempts at understanding his “difference” runs apace with his mother’s progressive loss of any sense of the world around her. It is a story of love beyond hope, of hope beyond trust, and trust beyond a love that increasingly ceased to have any meaning to anyone except Shuggie.
Agnes Bain, a mother of three, is alcohol-dependent. Her husband, Shug declares: “I can’t stay with you. All your wanting. All that drinking,” and he walks out; Stuart describes the scene so vividly (“like a party dress that had been dropped on the floor”) that the image lingers in your mind for a long time.
Her drinking worsens … the eldest daughter “escapes” to South Africa, the elder son moves out, hoping to make a career for himself. Shuggie stays on. When she decides to give up alcohol, for a brief period the whole house and its surroundings brighten up; there is also a hope that a new found love will get her through – but one fatal relapse, and she’s downhill again.
In the mean time Shuggie gets into school – gets ridiculed for his “difference”, his “proper” behaviour and his language, sadly reminiscent of Blanch DuBois from Tennessee Williams’ A Street Car Named Desire; and to some extent of Dickens’ Christmas Carol. But regardless of what life throws at him, Shuggie’s devotion to his mother is absolute: no matter that he has to stand in line for the weekly dole where his mother should have been; no matter that he had to pry coins out of the gas meter for his daily meals.
What is also striking is the dark landscape where the skyline is marked by dunes of coal dust, and abandoned mines. It is as if Glasgow tries to stand proud among its many ruins just as Agnes stands through her poverty and misery. And then there is the almost-colourful depiction of the wise-cracking women who carry on with their lives with their broken husbands (emasculated by unemployment but not averse to a fling now and then). Alcohol opens her to sexual abuse too – while Shuggie hopes to “save” her … and he clings to this hope till the end ... in spite of all the selfishness he sees around him.
There’s sadness all around, and misery. There’s pervasive poverty and hopelessness. Perhaps arising from a very personal exposure to the complexities described in the story. Perhaps not. But there’s resilient hope and there’s uncompromising love. And that takes the book out of the ordinary.
Marvellously Gloomy. Depressingly Heart-warming. Another of those “sweetest songs” รก la Shelley, “that tell of saddest thought”.
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The book has won the Man Booker Prize (announced on 20th November, 2020); it has also been shortlisted by the Centre for Fiction – First Novel Prize; it appears in the Longlist of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction (2021), and is a Finalist in the National Book Award for Fiction and the Kirkus Prize for Fiction.
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