Young Mungo: The No. 1 Sunday Times Bestseller
£7.60£9.50 (-20%)
Shortlisted for the Booktok Book of the Year.
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 in 80s Glasgow, and the deeply moving story of the dangerous first love of two young men.
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.
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.
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by danny
Could not put this book down. The gasp out loud at some of the parts and the gripping story telling.
Could imagine this being an amazing film. The characters are written so well and the the horrific acts that are written with enough detail but also enough space to let your mind imagine some of the horrors that happened to mungo.
To think that’s how scary it was for young gay people back then as well, i would have been mungos age when the book is set but it doesn’t feel too far from the world we are in now.
You have to read this book!
by CA
A modern love story. How do you survive an accident of birth? You don’t, it’s a fight to survive, but some of us have to get through more strife than others.
This story is very different from Shuggie Bain. It looks at the circumstances surrounding poverty and alcoholism from a whole different prism.
by Sue
Following on from Shuggie Baine, the story of young Mungo is equally heart wrenching & believable. It takes a while to get used to the Scottish dialect, but well worth perusing. Can highly recommend
by Richard
Great book.
by N Drake
It’s taken me a few days until I felt like I had processed Young Mungo enough to leave a review that would do it justice. This is a book that I know will stay with me for a very long time.
To start with, Stuart is an exceptional writer. Everything he expressed was nuanced, sparse, and coated in heart. It’s an unflinching look at poverty in Glasgow in the 90s – yet this raw, gritty and unflinching story is never gratuitous or vulgar.
Young Mungo is full to the brim with pain and love, two emotions that the protagonist will spend a lifetime trying to separate. At times it was difficult to read, there are some harrowing violent and abusive scenes, but ultimately it’s a book about love, family, and self-discovery. As much for himself as those around him who are destined to never change.
I haven’t read Stuart’s Booker Prize-winning debut – Shuggie Bain – and perhaps had I started with that I may have been less impressed with Young Mungo (it appears Stuart has focussed on similar themes with both books, but taken this one to a more gruesome level).
All I know is that this is a talented writer who, through his spectacular storytelling, was able to drag me through the streets of 90s Glasgow and turn my head toward its darkest side. I couldn’t look away – and now I’ll never stop thinking about what I saw.
by Paulina
This was a very difficult book to read. Of course I wasn’t expecting a light read, I was prepared for misery and a heavy dose of homophobia. But I wasn’t prepared for the amount of paedophilia and sexual assault. So i would suggest anyone wanting to read this book to be prepared for some heavy parts of the book related to those topics.
I think as a whole it’s difficult to even judge this book. Was it a fascinating and well written story? Of course. Would I ever want to re-read it or recommend it to anyone else? Not really.
by Luke Murdoch
Loved this book, it really transports you there. Great seller, book in good condition and packaged well.
by Mark Budding
A young teenager living in Glasgow tenements is becoming aware of his sexuality in an environment where being gay is scorned and dealt with severely. It is a good read but not for the faint hearted.