Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

Except fur yin, a' body loved this book, mair sae than ony ither in th' lest four years o' th' club’s lee.  (Except for one, everyone loved this book, more so than any other in the last four years of the Club’s life.) But don’t worry it is not written in Glaswegian dialect.

 The Book

This is a searing, autobiographically inspired depiction of o' a raw lee in poverty in 1980s Glescae as th' pits 'n' th' shipyards closed 'n' o' a bairnskip suffused wi' alcoholism, physical 'n' verbal violence 'n' loue.  (a raw life in poverty in 1980s Glasgow as the pits and the shipyards closed and of a childhood suffused with alcoholism, physical and verbal violence and love.)

A powerful book about poverty, addiction and abuse set in 1980s Glasgow following the neglected wee Shuggie from the age of 5 to 15, a misfit who talks and walks and dresses “no right” for a Catholic boy, and in particular his relationship with his chaotic alcoholic and disintegrating mother, the beautiful, proud, but damaged Agnes and his inextinguishable love for her, and hers for him despite all the neglect and harm. (AA)

When I was reading it, I felt that it was a very powerful, a really big, meaty book, a very real book, very well-written, with strong, complex and believable characters, and a lot of very apt and well written expressions (RV). This book captured the awfulness for children of living with a parent with a serious alcohol problem; and the awfulness too for the parent, most of the time. It caught the massive anxiety, the constant worry, that children undergo; and the way that it blights their lives in almost every way. (RV)

I finished the (long) book today, and I was surprised how long it was. It took me a while to get into it, and first I was dismayed by the grimness of it. But soon I was immersed in it and spent lots of spare moments trying to finish it. Today I have felt quite emotional and sad, and still involved in its space.  It was easy to read, but many words I had to look up. (MT)

A terrific book, bleak and beautiful with some stunning chapters and images such as the fire, the death scene, Agnes at Shug’s lover’s house, the women sitting around in their knocked off bras. (MW)

Poverty and Glasgow

And it also captured the decay of Glasgow in that era, and the decimation that the Thatcher years brought, following her closure of the mines.  “Thatcher didn’t want honest workers any more; her future was technology and nuclear power and private health. Industrial days were over, and the bones of the Clyde Shipworks and the Springburn Railworks lay about the city like rotted dinosaurs. Whole housing estates of young men who were promised the working trades of their fathers had no future now. Men were losing their very masculinity.” (RV)

And the amazing idea of having all of your teeth pulled and wearing dentures, because your diet was so poor that by the time you were a teenager all of your teeth were rotting out anyway! “Leek took out his top set of porcelain dentures and rubbed at his cheek as if they had been pinching . Agnes, annoyed with the constant trips to the dentist, had convinced him to have his teeth, weak and riddled with aluminum fillings, pulled for his fifteenth birthday.” (RV)

Glasgow is described as I remember it. I have a very close friend who is from Lesmahagow - a mining village outside Glasgow. I could not understand half the words she uttered when I first knew her. She showed me some grim parts of Glasgow and some of it was quite scary. She became a social worker and told me some awful stories. I also cycled through Glasgow on my cycle tour, and followed the banks of the Clyde -recently, still quite grim, and scary. (MT)

Religion

The importance of religion in Glasgow daily life recurred over and over again and having opted for either Catholics or Protestants you were stuck. Shuggie tried to avoid this by taking no sides but it was impossible to not be picked on for being the opposite religion to the right one over and over again.

“Big Shug Bain had seemed so shiny in comparison to the catholic. He had been vain in the way only Protestants were allowed to be, conspicuous with his shallow wealth, flushed pink with gluttony and waste”. (CW)

The religious divisions were fascinating, I had forgotten about the divide in Glasgow, between protestant and cath-lic, and the areas where they lived, and the football teams they supported. (MT)

The role of women and men

The dominant role of misogynistic males in the book - women’s lot was hopeless. Their role was to keep the house in order and to care for children: “whatever it takes Agnes, keep going, even if it’s not for you, even if it’s just for them. Keep going. That’s what mammies do.

Shug’s advice to Shuggie “It’s a grand age to be sticking yersel into a Lassies bread bin, seeing as you’ve got a couple more years before any real harm can come of it“. (CW)

 The harsh bleak lives especially of the women with constant violence, desperation and despair, often with alcohol and Valium as their only escape (AA)

 Harsh life and alcoholism

It tells of the extreme experiences of children in this world (would have been better off in care, said my social worker friend).

It’s only into the middle third of the book, after learning about Agnes, Shug, Catherine and Leek that we finally meet Shuggie properly - abandoned, uncared for, now without his grandparents to look after him, getting himself ready for school, missing school, dirty, cold, hungry and then physically and sexually assaulted - with no-one to tell – and still only 5 (AA)

Terrible description of the slow descent into alcoholism and the role of special brew in Glaswegian life “if it wasn’t for him they could have left the shores of sobriety behind and forever sailed a sea of special brew“. (CW)

 It’s a powerful commentary on alcoholism, sectarianism, dysfunctional families, poverty.   It can be seen as is part of that continuum of great “poverty” literature that runs from Dickens, through Hugo to Steinbeck and onwards. It is a great evocation of a particular moment in time – a world of Kensitas cigarettes, “hackneys”, Tennents lager and Special Brew (JH)

There are shocking events, mainly violent, and by the dozen, and also the chilling brief reference to Wullie getting rid of Lizzie's baby with no questions asked… (“What baby” might be the most powerful quote in the book MW). And these terrible things just keep happening – the Pit women pushing Agnes to drink, and the procession of Pit men bringing drink and rape, Colleen’s disintegration in the street (all for want of contraception), the awful teenage sex just by the side of the motorway…And then after Agnes’ supreme efforts of a year of sobriety, Eugene dismantles this in a single day – perhaps as he felt embarrassed and wanted to normalise her (AA)

And the poor wee Shuggie having his first can of Special Brew at 11, ravenous and trying to fill up on that and custard powder straight from the tin in his mother’s absence. Living in fear, and all the sleepless nights spent worrying about his mother or trying to keep off the booze, his afflicted bowel, his terrible first day at school back in Glasgow, and the older boys eating his lunch, and hopes dashed of moving in with Leek or enrolling for hairdressing evening class, an increasing toll of damage passed on by the damaged Agnes (AA)

[Spoiler alert] And then when his mum finally dies after he’s got her ready for bed, he then lovingly sets about making her look nice again. Always doing his best and trying so hard and hoping things will be better in a childish naive – and moving – way (AA)

So how is Shuggie at the end of the book?

 Still tense – Stuart describes the tension in the faces and nails and the shoulders and the bodies and gaits of Leek and Leanne and Shuggie – these young carers

Shuggie had been watching his mother quietly. He was always watching. She had raised three of them in the same mould, every single one of her children was as observant and wary as a prison warden.

And he is angry -

On particularly low days he folded all types of his bodily discharge into the taramasalata

And he is surviving by providing sexual favours for beer and food – all too reminiscent of Agnes (AA)

Description of place

There is a very strong sense of the different places the action plays out, vividly described.

Fantastic description of Agnes and her family being driven to the new house by Shug - arriving at the houses of their dreams, only to continue on towards the pit - to their actual home next to the slag heaps – and just as their hopes are dashed…..they get to meet all their new neighbours. And the descriptions of Leek’s den amongst the pallets, and Shuggie’s trampled grass circle where he practised being “a normal boy” (AA)

Each scene so well described: the fire incident in the hotel, the meal out with Eugene, the school games field, the choosing from the catalogues.

The characters

The characters are all beautifully defined, especially Agnes, Shug, Leek and Shuggie himself as they go through the first years of Shuggie’s life.  And we get a strong sense of the other characters such as the grandparents, Wullie and Lizzie, secret drinkers, whose steps Agnes was following.

 Agnes may be one of the great literary creations: beautiful, down on her luck, fatally flawed personality, capable of great love and great anger – emotional range. We ride the highs and lows of her life with her like a rollercoaster, hoping that Eugene works out and isn’t a bastard like the rest of them, and though he turns out badly, he makes sure to keep them in custard and makes an ally of Shuggie (SC). 

Some of the individual chapters were extraordinarily successful – for example, Chapter 14 with its brief story of the way Leek (one of the “good” ones in the novel) beat up a nightwatchman with a crowbar and hospitalised him – which was described as one of the best things that could have happened to the watchman’s family as he was now guaranteed “disability for life” – he had “never been a big talker anyway”….. and the way the chapter concludes with the extraordinary description of Colleen McAvenies rantings about her husband and Agnes, and then her final and tragic knickerless collapse in the street in front of her children and assorted neighbours.  A really powerful bit of writing. (JH)

 Some wondered if the novel should have been called Agnes Bain as she is the dominant character, yet it is through Shuggie and his unassailable love for his addicted mother that the novel comes alive. This is interwoven with his emerging sense of his difference from most of the other boys.

 Well written from the perspective of a young boy – instantly having hopes raised and then dashed in a black and white childish way. And how when things are actually good, he is unable to enjoy them because of the lasting effects of the trauma (AA)

 I liked the developing relationship with Leanne, and their terrible similarities with their drunk mothers. Did this make them like they are, Shuggie with no dad, and posh drunk mother? Leanne was the same maybe? (MT)

 The language

The language is beautifully crafted with endless surprising yet so accurate metaphors and a smooth mix of story, reflections by the characters and the drama of a disrupted and disrupting life. And the use of dialect in dialogue is just right: reminding you of the place and character of the protagonists but not so much it is difficult to follow.

 Beautiful prose with descriptions that take you right to the place and person in one’s imagination. The different settings among the decaying pit housing estate surrounded by slag heaps, high-rise 1960s flats with bleak windswept car parks and underneath the arches in Glasgow city centre among be down and outs and alcoholics. (CW)

Stuart’s command of English particularly the use of similes:

“The burnt hills glinted when they were struck with sunlight, and the wind blew black wispy puffs from the tops like they were giant piles of unhoovered stour. Soon the greenish brownish air filled with a dark tangy smell, metallic and sharp like licking the end of a spent battery.”

“A group of women stood in a cluster by the fence their arms folded like car bumpers”

The hopelessness of life “why do we have to just lie down and take everything in life“. (CW)

Closing Thoughts

We all recognised the characters and the lives of the families in their tough circumstances, especially those who have worked with families in poverty and the grip of addiction. Scenes are beautifully and movingly represented even when describing sad or saddening events such as the death of a character or rough teenage romance.

Richard wondered if the book would have had more depth if like, Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, also read by the Club, it had had more characters or continued into Shuggie and Leek’s adulthood. But this book was simply one, rather unending, unremitting, steam-roller, of just one thing – the awfulness of Agnes’s drinking and resulting behaviour, and its effects on her children (and the awfulness of Glasgow poverty, both materially and in terms of his view of ‘poor people’s relationships’). “It smelled like margarine and white bread, like marriage and cramped flats.” – in many ways, the descriptions provide an insight into a life that is very far removed from most of us. But he felt it did not provide hope or solutions and quotes the Booker Prize summary: “Laying bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride, Shuggie Bain is a blistering and heartbreaking debut, and an exploration of the unsinkable love that only children can have for their damaged parents.” 

Steve wondered about the opening chapter: One of the most vividly written yet most depressing openings to a novel I can recall. Made even darker when you realise this is how Shuggie turns out after the tribulations that the book goes on to describe – so you start to question whether even this dark chapter isn’t in some way, a redemption, a release.

I liked it a lot, even if it wasn’t exactly escapism. A straightforward and easily consumed book, written with in beautifully simple yet lyrical prose. Fantastic for a first novel – as MW said, you wonder how he could ever hit these heights again (SC).

 And the one dissenting voice: As a whole I did not enjoy this book. I really struggled with it.  It was hard work and interminable, pleased when the ordeal was over.  But I do recognise the merit of the book. (JH)

 A couple of issues

 An odd note when this manly taxi driver Shug took them out to the Pithead for the first time, where ‘Shug couldn’t answer. From the roundness in his shoulders she could see his own heart had sunk.’. Surely a taxi driver would have known only too well the nature of the place he was consigning his family to? Or was he feeling terrible about the fact he was going to leave them there? (SC)

Really can’t understand why Eugene needed Agnes to take up drinking again. Did he really love and respect her or was Colleen somehow egging him on? Or did he need to know that he and Agnes could have fun together without understanding the challenge she might face? RW told us some people can start moderate drinking again, so maybe Eugene hoped she’d be one of those.

The one problem I have is the depiction of Shuggie.  He is shown as someone who is fussy, neat, ordered, a ‘mummy’s boy’, who likes dolls, dancing, skipping and hair-dressing, who speaks ‘posh’, and walks differently to ‘real’ boys. This to me is a classic, old-fashioned or dated, description of a homosexual male. I recognise the genetic influence on sexual preference and a tendency to certain behaviours, it seems to me that some result from social learning, Shuggie’s mother no doubt influenced him to ‘speak properly’, but he would not have been exposed to men or women who walked in a mincing manner.

However, the author, Douglas Stuart, says he was ‘othered’ at six-years old and self-identifies as ‘queer’ and he based Shuggie on his own experience of growing up in a similar environment with similar problems, so I must concede to his greater knowledge.

Score: 8.04 (and if the lowest score is taken out) 8.55

Lots of wonderful quotes:

“These sunken faced pit aunties appeared at the door most mornings like feral cats”.

Men rotting into the settee for want of decent work

They were taunting her, their voices pitched, ready to break, the dangerous sound of little boys coming into the intoxicating power of manhood.

Agnes wanted to put her foot through it all, or to scrape it back like it was spoilt wallpaper. To get her nail under it and rip it all away.

Shuggie watched her and said under his breath, “Why can’t I be enough?” But she wasn’t listening.

The meat of her face was a taut as a leathered skull. Her eyes were deep pockets in her head, and her hair was a rich wild brown but thinning, like the coat of an uncombed cat. She stood in bagged-out stretch pants, the stirrups stuffed into men’s house slippers.

There was a thump-thump against the door, like a hard fist against the wood. Shuggie recoiled as Colleen’s kitchen knife shot through the slot and jabbed wildly in the air. Shuggie pressed himself against the inner draught door and watched as the silver blade darted in and out of the letter box. It searched blindly for his flesh, its edge so keen and sharp it screeched as it sawed back and forth against the metal flap.

Stuart, Douglas. Shuggie Bain: Winner of the Booker Prize 2020 (p. 343). Pan Macmillan. Kindle Edition.

“His living was made by moving people, but his favourite pastime was watching them.”

“Rain was the natural state of Glasgow. It kept the grass green and the people pale and bronchial.”

“She had loved him, and he had needed to break her completely to leave her for good. Agnes Bain was too rare a thing to let someone else love. It wouldn’t do to leave pieces of her for another man to collect and repair later.”

“The boy could feel her warm tongue against his cheek like a piece of fatty stewed beef.”

“From where Eugene watched him, he looked like a half-shut penknife, a thing that should be sharp and useful, that was instead closed and waiting and rusting.”

“The other taxi drivers had taken on that familiar shape of men past their prime, the hours spent sedentary behind the wheel causing the collapse of their bodies, the full Scottish breakfasts and the snack bar suppers settling like cooled porridge around their waists. Eventually the taxi hunched them over till their shoulders rounded into a soft hump and their heads jutted forward on jowled necks. The ones who had been at the night shift a long time had turned ghostly pale, their only colour was the faint rosacea from the years of drink. These were the men who decorated their fingers with gold sovereign rings, taking vain pleasure from watching them sit high and shiny on the steering wheel.”

Agnes’ experience

“Agnes screwed her eyes shut and went back to a place where she felt young and hopeful and wanted. 

“Colourless daylight poured through the net curtains. It poked her in the face, and with a snort she thumped back into consciousness. Agnes opened her eyes slowly and found herself staring at the cream Artexed ceiling with its icy stalactite texture. Her lips wouldn’t close over the sticky film on her top teeth as the dry boak rose inside her. Under her right hand she felt the slippery damask fabric of the armchair. Her fingers traced the familiar fag-burn holes. She was vaguely upright, cradling a dead phone receiver …. She sat still awhile, her head tilted over the back of the chair, like an open pedal bin. She closed her eyes again and listened to her brain thump loudly..”

Shuggie’s experience

“When she laughed, he danced harder. He did whatever had caused her to laugh another dozen times till her smile stretched thin and false, and then he searched for the next move that would make her happy. He bounced and flung his arms out as she laughed and clapped. The happier she looked, the harder he wanted to spin and flail.”

“Some mornings she would wake up with a fright and find Shuggie staring at her. He would be dressed, dwarfed by the bag slung over both shoulders, his face washed and his wet hair parted and brushed in the front only. She would lie there, fully dressed, trying to pull her dry lips over her teeth, while he would say, “Good morning,” and then quietly turn and leave for school. He hadn’t wanted to leave without letting her know he would be right back afterwards. He took her pinkie in his and swore it.”

“Her body hung off the side of the bed, and by the odd angle Shuggie could tell the drink had spun her all night like a Catherine wheel.”

“but he came to know it was only indigestion. It was the burning bile of anticipation, the rising fear of what might lie at home. Agnes had gotten sober many times before, but the cramps had never really, completely gone away. To Shuggie, the stretches of sobriety were fleeting and unpredictable and not to be fully enjoyed. As with any good weather, there was always more rain on the other side. He’d stopped counting a while ago. To have marked her sobriety in days was like watching a happy weekend bleed by: when you watched it, it was always too short. So he just stopped counting.”

“Every small detail of the house told of what lay within. This evening the curtains were drawn tight against the cold and the lamps were on. His stomach lifted in hope. Shuggie opened the front door a crack, just enough so he could hear the hum of the house. He knew what to listen for. Wailing and crying foretold a bad night; she would want to hold him in her arms and tell him bad stories of the men who had broken her. If there was the sound of country guitars and sad melancholy singing, then the warm moistness of shit would start to wet his underpants. To hear his mother on the telephone was not always a bad sign. He had to creep in between the front door and the draught door to listen very closely to the tone of her voice, push his ear against the cold dimpled glass and hold his breath. She didn’t have to be crying or screaming or slurring her words for the drink to be in her. It could still be there. It made her overly polite, a false Milngavie accent full of long-syllabled words. Her lips would pull away from her front teeth and she would use words like certainly and unfortunately. These were the worst sounds to hear. Agnes was mourning her losses but still too far from unconsciousness”