I also enjoyed the structure and how well Stuart navigates between the two timeframes, bringing them beautifully together for a final chapter that is nothing less than devastating, yet hopeful. I am not ashamed to admit that tears were shed. The prose is vivid and clear and superb. The dialogue zings with authenticity. The psychologies are startingly sound and the sociology unabashedly hyper-realistic. The connection to emotions is genuine and painful and the breath is shallow and hurried. If it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s snobbery and one-upmanship. People trying to pretend they’re superior. Makes it so much harder for those of us who are”. Not at all,’ said Mungo. ‘I wagered ten guineas that I could get at least a hundred votes against the motion. Nobody else thought I would get more than fifty. And though the glory of victory is very fine, I would rather have the extra gold in my purse.’ Of course, that makes him a perfect target for Hamish and the other louts of Glasgow’s East End. When the book opens, Mungo is getting on a bus with two questionable-looking men, heading off on a fishing trip up north somewhere. He’s sixteen but looks much younger. His mother is waving good-bye from the window.

Young Mungo — Douglas Stuart

Are you afraid of this Yankee upstart?’ Manners had stood up. He snatched the bottle that his friend carried and broke it on the cobbles so that he was left with a jagged and glittering stump. He advanced again, more cautiously, this time. Two encounters with Mungo had taught him that much, at least. It actually became so much fun to engage in the Glaelic-Scottish dialect- (the endangered language), that I’ve started saying *Aye* instead of yes, to my husband. And…..”Ye’re only a wee, thing, ye?” ——I got very funny looks from Paul - but he laughed and rolled with my new word play. The man who had been lounging on the front bench rose. No one applauded, but a new force seemed to charge the room. Up in the gallery, where a few well-bred young ladies were allowed to observe proceedings as long as they stayed silent, crinolines rustled and stays creaked as they leaned forward to see better.The motion before you tonight is, “This house believes that slavery should be abolished from the face of the Earth”. And, indeed, the case is so self-evident I feel I hardly need to argue it.’ Young Mungo is anxious, needy, sweet, naive and terribly neglected. He is Other and is adrift and friendless until he meets James. The tenderest and sweetest of love unfolds and then...chaos, violence, hurt along with deep care, hope and a yearning for the wider world and connection to nature and beauty. It's a long time since I've felt such sympathy for a fictional character. Mungo is so confused and anxious - he even has a tic that makes his face twitch when he gets stressed. He yearns for compassion from Mo-Maw, treats her like a queen and gets nothing in return. When his friendship with James looks like it might turn into something more, you're absolutely rooting for him. If anybody deserves a shot at happiness it's poor Mungo, a caring, thoughtful boy who has been dealt such a bad hand. Instead it's just a series of bad things happening to a character that I don't care about occasionally interrupted by interludes of characters the reader is even less invested in and in one instance the actual child rapist. Fifteen-year-old Mungo shows the kind of vulnerability that makes people want to cradle him — or crush him. He’s the tender Scottish hero of Douglas Stuart’s moving new novel, “Young Mungo.” It’s a tale of romantic and sexual awakening punctuated by horrific violence. Amid all its suffering, Mungo’s story makes two things strikingly clear: 1) Being named after the patron saint of Glasgow offers no protection, and 2) Stuart writes like an angel.

Mungosbooks

Terrible business that. Yer mammy telt us all about that mess ye got yourself into with those dirty Fenian bastards. Catholics, man. Butter widnae melt.’ Dinnae worry,’ grinned Gallowgate. ‘We’ll get you away frae that scheme. We’ll have a proper boy’s weekend. Make a man out of you yet, eh?’” At one late stage Mungo lists the disappointment of others and what they have called him “Idiot. Weakling. Liar. Poofter. Coward. Pimp. Bigot” – all the more heartbreaking as coming in many cases from those closest to him. There are many wonderful characters, including kindly neighbours who love Mungo. There is also politics. A teacher tries to explain to Jodie’s class the reason for the violence and despair. The book is uneven. I found it overly long and couldn’t help but think some tightening up would have helped.

Shipping Terms

Having said that, the ‘two boys kissing’ cover does reflect two key kissing scenes that occur one after the other that are effectively mirror events. Still, I don’t think this cover is quite accurate in reflecting the tone of the novel. The ‘Mungo submerged’ cover is rather ambiguous and ominous, and it brilliantly reflects two key events involving water. This is the best cover of the two, in my opinion.

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart | Goodreads

James’s father is a macho oil-rigger who makes good money and is out at sea for weeks at a time, so the boys are left on their own with plenty of food. For Mungo, it’s a far cry from the empty cupboards and threats from Hamish at home. The audience filed through two doors, one for ‘aye’ on the right, and one for ‘no’ on the left. The queue for the ‘ayes’ was noticeably longer, but a surprising number turned the other way. Mungo watched the count from his seat, the grin on his face never wavering. Just as Shuggie Bain isn’t a story for everyone, neither is this one. It’s disturbing and triggering in so many ways. But because of the tender love between those two boys, Young Mungo felt a little more hopeful to me. That ending … I’d really like to meet them again, for instance, as side characters in Douglas’ next book (which I’d like to be a little less dark), just to know they’re happy and doing okay. 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.The story alternates between May (sometime in the 1990s) and January, a few months before, the period which obviously leads up to his being sent off camping to toughen up. I'm also happy to say that despite the bleakness that permeates the novel, it's not without hope! I really loved the ending, and the moments that Mungo shares with his downstairs neighbor, a closeted gay man who is ridiculed by the community but whom Mungo comes to understand more deeply as the novel goes on. I appreciate the fact that more queer love stories are making their way into the world, EVEN THOUGH this is NOT the kind of queer content I want to read.