Young Mungo

The extraordinary, powerful second novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain, Young Mungo is both a vivid portrayal of working-class life and the deeply moving story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James.

Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow's housing estates, where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation. They should be sworn enemies if they're to be seen as men at all, and yet they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the doocot that James has built for his prize racing pigeons. As they begin to fall in love, they dream of escaping the grey city, and Mungo must work hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his elder brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold.

But the threat of discovery is constant and the punishment unspeakable. When Mungo's mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in western Scotland with two strange men behind whose drunken banter lie murky pasts, he needs to summon all his inner strength and courage to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future.

Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism, Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the meaning of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by so many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.

Short-listed for ABIA International Book of the Year 2023 (Australia)

A touching story of forbidden love pursued in the face of sectarian violence with a plot that unfolds with all the urgency and dread of teenage yearning The Times/The Sunday Times, ‘Books of the Year’
Stuart follows his Booker-winning Shuggie Bain with another tale of a Glasgow boy whose mother is an alcoholic. This time, however, it’s a love story, with Protestant-Catholic sectarian tensions in the background; Mungo and pigeon-fancier James are star-crossed lovers in a Jets and Sharks world. The tension of their romance is expertly sustained. The Daily Telegraph, ‘Books of the Year’
Again Douglas Stuart proves himself a wonderfully gifted writer . . . Young Mungo is the work of a true novelist. The Guardian
A dazzling modern masterpiece . . . a book of clear, honest, often dazzling intent and integrity Evening Standard
The profundity of Stuart’s exceptional writing comes, then, partly from his commitment to the truth that even amid deprivation, compassion persists. This is most fully and beautifully expressed in the relationship between Mungo and his fellow lonely adolescent Catholic James . . . It is no exaggeration to say that I read the final pages through floods of breathless tears. Independent
There are sentences here that gleam and shimmer, demanding to be read and reread for their beauty and their truth . . . I sobbed my way through Shuggie Bain and sobbed again as Young Mungo made its way towards an ending whose inevitability only serves to heighten its tragedy. The Observer
Stuart [is] a virtuoso describer with a more or less infinite supply of tender detail and elegant phrasing . . . Mungo’s predicament is piercing, and as the story draws to a close, a spectral beauty prevails. The Guardian
Captures a world of suffering and sectarian violence with writing of transcendent beauty Financial Times
A rich and affecting group portrait of loneliness. Every character . . . is horribly alone . . . Stuart’s book feels richly abundant. It spills over with colourful characters and even more colourful insults. And like a Dickens novel it has a moral vision that’s expansive and serious while being savagely funny. The Sunday Times
Young Mungo seals it: Douglas Stuart is a genius . . . [He] writes like an angel. The Washington Post
If you adored Shuggie Bain . . . Young Mungo will please you on every page. If you didn’t, what’s wrong with you? Los Angeles Times
Stuart writes beautifully, with marvelous attunement to the poetry in the unlovely and the mundane . . . The novel conveys an enveloping sense of place, in part through the wit and musicality of its dialogue. The New York Times

Douglas Stuart was born and raised in Glasgow. After graduating from the Royal College of Art, he moved to New York, where he began a career in fashion design. Shuggie Bain, his first novel, won the Booker Prize, the Sue Kaufman Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and 'Debut of the Year' and 'Book of The Year' at the British Book Awards. It was also shortlisted for the US National Book Award for Fiction, the Kirkus Prize and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. His short stories have appeared in the New Yorker and his essay on Gender, Anxiety and Class was published by Lit Hub. He lives in New York.

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