Description
About Douglas Stuart
Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American author and fashion designer. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain, won the 2020 Booker Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. It won both the Debut of the Year, and the overall, Book of the Year, at the British Book Awards.
In April 2022, he published his second novel, Young Mungo. He is currently at work on new writing.
His short stories, Found Wanting, and The Englishman, were published in The New Yorker magazine. His essay, Poverty, Anxiety, and Gender in Scottish Working-Class Literature was published by Lit Hub.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he has an MA from the Royal College of Art in London and an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh. Since 2000, he has lived and worked in New York City, although he spends as much time in Glasgow as he can.
About Young Mungo
THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
‘Prepare your hearts, for Douglas Stuart is back. After the extraordinary success of Shuggie Bain, his second novel, Young Mungo, is another beautiful and moving book, a gay Romeo and Juliet set in the brutal world of Glasgow’s housing estates.’ – The Observer
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.
About Tom Crewe
Tom Crewe’s first novel, The New Life, was published to wide acclaim in January, when he was also chosen as one of the Observer’s best new novelists of 2023. Since 2015, he has been an editor at the London Review of Books, to which he contributes essays on politics, art, history and fiction.
