Young Mungo

Despite how unrelentingly grim much of Young Mungo is, I found myself gripped by the dual interlocking narratives. I even found myself dreaming about the work one evening. The novel follows closely the successful template of Shuggie Bain, just with the intensity ramped up. Put simply, if it were not hard enough living in a Glaswegian tenement with an alcoholic mother, imagine how much harder it would be if you were homosexual. The matter is compounded for the eponymous Mungo by the fact that his first love is a Catholic and he a Protestant. The level of violence in Young Mungo is markedly higher than in Stuart's predecessor, not just along religious lines, but also meted out during the unfortunate fishing expedition Mungo undertakes. Despite all the context, reading Young Mungo is far from a depressing experience. Stuart writes effortlessly well, both in terms of his use of metaphor and simile, and in terms of how he contrasts Glaswegian life (with its dialect on full display) with the rare flashes of beauty witnessed elsewhere — on the lochs, for example. Young Mungo is a wonderful insight into a different world. Like Shuggie Bain, it should make it into this year's top ten. Ten out of ten.

By Douglas Stuart