Shuggie and Leek learn to undress Agnes after a night out, to look away from her bruised thighs and gouged breasts, to catch vomit and wipe bile. She looked at the light for a moment, and her voice cracked with the poor me’s as she sang along with the cassette. There is much that’s lovely about this writing, with its control and precision, and the child’s-eye images of ice cream and ‘smoky fishes’. Shuggie is different. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. When Shug comes into the flat, she thinks: ‘It should have been a time to spend together.’ But he passes them by, jingling his coppers, to watch television with her parents. Agnes’ drinking habits become worse, and she is abused sexually by men. Agnes clung to him, and together they watched all this new beauty in silence. The critic Sam Sacks has called such books ‘agony novels’, but agony by itself isn’t usually enough. Because the truth of living under a patriarchy, even when it’s bringing the men to their knees financially, is that women and children suffer. And this is the world of Agnes Bain, his glamorous, calamitous mother, drinking herself ever so slowly to death. “I was working all day, but whenever I had any spare time, all I wanted to do was write,” he says. She is devoted to her second husband Shug who treats her cruelly. “Agnes is the star of her own life, and part of the tragedy is when her life doesn’t turn out in the right way, and we see how the movie is going to go,” says Stuart. Wife died on the. I want to drop the reader right into the middle of this domestic scene, and because I didn’t come from a creative-writing background, I had to rely on my visual skills in order to create this world. But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. In a flashback we see him rape her on a seaside holiday (after dragging her upstairs by the hair, angry that she’s made a drunken scene). She attracts other alcoholics and they all help each other downwards in a never-ending spiral of hangovers and desperation. -- Garrard Conley, New York Times-bestselling author of Boy Erased A dark shining work. Shuggie Bainby Douglas Stuart Douglas Stuart’s debut novel about the childhood of a young boy in working-class Scotland won last year’s Booker prize. The novel is dedicated to his late mother, referenced respectfully only as AED. The 2 main characters are Shuggie and Agnes where their relationship is incredibly intense and wonderfully close. Please change your browser settings to allow Javascript content to run. . But ah jist thought, fuck ye, McAvennie, and to spite him ah shut up the shop … That must be when he started fuckin’ around.’ Colleen rips off her clothes and lies down in the street. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. “So that also talks to why Shuggie is really resonating right now—it’s not really a historical fiction novel at all.”. Agnes, Shuggie’s mother, is in her second marriage to Shug Bain, a protestant and womaniser. All rights reserved. Agnes used her free arm and pulled him tighter towards her. Over the years that followed, even after shifting to a role at Gap, Stuart grew frustrated. He started to squirm as the smoke burst with a gasp into orange flame. ‘It’s Saint Agnes’s lament.’) They are saved by Shug, who puts out the fire with wet towels, burning himself in the process. . But by the time Stuart graduated from the Scottish College of Textiles in Galashiels in 1998, the Scottish textile industry, like mining, shipbuilding, and steel before it, was on its knees. London Review of Books, To the extent that it engages in adult psychology, the mentality portrayed is either vicious and predatory (Shug) or victimised (Agnes). When Shuggie’s older siblings talk about their aspirations – Catherine wants to get married, Leek wants to go to art school – they sound a bit like characters in a Bruce Springsteen song or a young adult novel. I’m 39!’ she says. I ruined many a summer holiday by asking my husband to go somewhere and then sitting at a desk the whole time,” he adds, laughing. A24 and Scott Rudin Productions have won the rights to Douglas Stuart’s highly acclaimed debut novel, Shuggie Bain, with plans to adapt for television. --Richard Russo, author of Chances Are "Every now and then a novel comes along that feels necessary and inevitable. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her—even her beloved Shuggie. The book opens the curtain on the world after the social worker has gone home. (On the British cover, a boy sits on a post that looks not unlike a cross.) Released to strong reviews in February, the book gained momentum as a word-of-mouth hit during lockdown, attracting praise not only for Stuart’s window into the plague of unemployment and working-class disillusionment wrought by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government but also, perhaps more importantly, for the empathy that radiates from every page. Not bad for a side-hustle, albeit one that was a decade in the writing. The scene takes a nightmarish turn: Agnes reached across the mattress for her cigarettes, she lit one and sucking loudly, she coaxed the end into a blazing copper tip. Shuggie is different. Agnes’s creedal betrayal hangs over the novel’s early pages like a curse, but it’s clear enough what the real problems are: she’s a lush and Shug is a brute with a wandering eye. Shuggie Bain, Stuart’s debut novel, tells the heart-wrenching story of the love between Agnes Bain and her son as she sinks into alcoholism and … Agnes and Shuggie have a strong bond. All the essentials: top fashion stories, editor’s picks, and celebrity style. letters@lrb.co.uk A24 and Scott Rudin Productions have acquired the rights to the 2020 novel “Shuggie Bain” to develop a television series based on it. A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Before she has the chance, James and Colleen get into a terrible fight. And by underscoring their charisma and humor in the face of unthinkable circumstances, it serves as a counterpoint to the chillier image of strength that Thatcher embodied—and that still endures. We meet our protagonist at the height of my own, but just... Meeting says: ‘ the bastards couldnae burn Saint Agnes, so they the. 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