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Shuggie Bain

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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, Scotland.

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 had sold more than 1.5 million copies globally.

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.

The following year, Shug moves the family into a council flat in Pithead for families of workers of the local mine. He ultimately abandons the family there, leaving them to live with Joanie Micklewhite, the dispatcher of his cab company. Agnes desires a life of glamour, taking pride in her appearance, but her unhappiness drives her reliance on alcohol. Meanwhile, Shuggie is bullied at school and in the neighbourhood for not fitting in and for being effeminate. Shuggie often misses school to act as his mother's carer during her hangovers.

Agnes's parents die and her daughter marries young, moving to South Africa. Agnes's alcoholism worsens, and she is taken advantage of by abusive men. Her future looks brighter when she starts going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and takes a job as a petrol-station attendant. She manages to stay off drink completely for a year, during which time she meets a cab driver named Eugene, whom she begins to date. Eugene often drinks in front of her during dinners. He eventually convinces Agnes to drink a glass of wine, and she relapses into alcoholism. Put off by her alcoholism, Eugene leaves her. After a sexual assault at a party she attends when drunk, Agnes spirals downwards and loses her job. She makes multiple suicide attempts over the next few years.

Agnes's alcoholism continues to alienate her from her children. In one of her drunken rages, she kicks Leek out of the house. Despite her behaviour, Shuggie maintains an unwavering devotion to her. The two of them move to a more inner-city neighbourhood, and Agnes promises to stop drinking, but unable to change their circumstances, their relationship becomes strained as Shuggie grows older. In a drunken stupor, Agnes dies after inhaling her own saliva.

Back in 1992, Shuggie gives the tins of fish to his friend Leanne, who gives them to her homeless alcoholic mother.

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