Review of YOUNG MUNGO by Douglas Stuart (New Release)

 4.5 Stars

I read Stuart’s debut novel Shuggie Bain, which won the 2020 Booker Prize, and was left in awe so I was excited to receive an advance reading copy of Stuart’s second novel.  Young Mungo is no less stunning and impactful.

The novel has two interwoven plot lines but both focus on Mungo Hamilton, a fifteen-year-old living in East End Glasgow in the 1990s.  In one plot line, Mungo is on a weekend fishing trip to an isolated loch with two men (Gallowgate and St. Christopher) his mother (Mo-Maw) met at an AA meeting.  The trip is intended to toughen him up; Mo-Maw says, “’That’s what ah wanted you to do this for.  Masculine  pursuits.  It’ll make a man out of ye.’”  From the beginning Mungo is not entirely comfortable; for example, Gallowgate means to give a friendly smile “but it was without warmth, and Mungo thought he saw a flash of menace cross his thin lips.” 

The second storyline shows Mungo’s family life and describes the events leading up to the fishing trip.  Mungo’s father is absent and his mother is neglectful.  Mo-Maw is away from home for long periods of time as she looks for a man to care for her; when she is at home, she drinks.  Hamish, Mungo’s older brother, lives with the 15-year-old mother of his daughter; he is the leader of a Protestant gang involved in criminal activities and violence against Catholics.  It is Jodie, Mungo’s older sister, who acts as a surrogate mother and looks after Mungo as best she can.

Mungo is a lonely, sensitive soul living in an environment where he does not fit in, surrounded as he is by toxic masculinity and sectarian violence.  He meets James, a kindred spirit.  They dream of finding somewhere they belong, but they must keep their relationship a secret because homosexuality is totally unacceptable and punishable by ostracism and violence.  To complicate matters, James is Catholic, and Mungo is expected to hate Catholics. 

Mungo is named after St. Kentigern, the patron saint of Glasgow.  He is aptly named.  He is a shy, gentle, kind person capable of “big, big love.”  He is full of self-loathing; he has been described by various people as “Idiot.  Weakling.  Liar.  Poofter.  Coward.  Pimp.  Bigot” so he has come to think of himself as unworthy.  He believes that he is to blame whenever things go wrong around him, going so far as to think of himself as “the ruiner of all good things.”  Despite his mother’s selfishness and neglect, he remains steadfast in his love for her:  “I don’t blame her.  I just try to love her.’” 

The relationship between Mungo and Mo-Maw is similar to the mother-son relationship in Shuggie Bain.  Mo-Maw, however, is not as sympathetic as Agnes.  Jodie describes how important Mungo is to his mother:  Mungo “was Mo-Maw’s youngest son, but he was also her confidant, her lady’s maid, and errand boy.  He was her one flattering mirror, and her teenage diary, her electric blanket, her doormat.  He was her best pal, the dog she hardly walked, and her greatest romance.  He was her cheer on a dreich morning, the only laughter in her audience. . . . her mother’s minor moon, her warmest sun, and at the exact same time, a tiny satellite that she had forgotten about.  He would orbit her for an eternity, even as she, and then he, broke into bits.”  Yet this woman abandons him, leaving home for weeks without letting him know where she is so he imagines she may be dead.  And she sends him on a fishing trip with two men she has met once at an AA meeting and doesn’t even know exactly where they’re taking her son.

The novel examines homophobia in an intolerant culture:  “There was nothing more shameful than being a poofter; powerless, soft as a woman.”  A man who rapes another man objects to being labeled a homosexual:  “’Call me that again an’ ah’ll knock ye out.’”  James’ father will let his son live at home only if he has a girlfriend.  Mo-Maw exhibits the same attitude.  Because Mungo has never had a girlfriend, Mo-Maw becomes concerned:  “Hamish had gotten a girl-child pregnant and she hadn’t ruffled a feather.  But now she stared into his eyes and she looked genuinely worried.”  A neighbour is a bachelor, a euphemism for homosexual, and after Mungo has shown him neighbourly friendliness, Mo-Maw lashes out, “’Stay away frae him, Mungo.  Dae ye hear?  Ah’ll be damned if ah raise a bachelor.’”  She sends her youngest son with two virtual strangers, one of whom tells Mungo that their task is to “Make a man out of you yet.’” 

Hamish also becomes obsessed with Mungo’s inability to conform to traditional cultural masculine norms.  Men are expected to suppress tender emotions (“It was foolish to say something sweet that the scheme could use against you later”) so they become, “knotted-up men” who resort to drinking away their sorrows and beating their wives because anger and pride are the only acceptable masculine emotions that can be expressed.  When Hamish’s gang steals and vandalizes a business, he insists Mungo attend, but Mungo’s concern for an injured gang member results in drawing police attention and Hamish’s ire:  “’The polis have been going door to door asking after us.  They want to know who’s been robbin’ the builders.  It’s only a matter of time afore some spiteful auld cunt grasses, and all because you couldnae man up.’”  Hamish also wants Mungo to be aggressive, threatening violence and worse if Mungo does not show up for a planned fight against a Catholic gang.  The losing gang members may retreat but they continue “bragging of their glories, screaming threats of retaliation . . . [keeping] their chests puffed out until they could be safe in their mammies’ arms again.”

The imagery is amazing:  “The man’s voice had a raspy quality, like he had a throatful of dry toast” and “he had ribs like the hull of an upturned boat” and “he was smacking his lips in agitation like a woman who couldn’t believe the price of milk nowadays” and “In their nylon tracksuits [the gang members] looked like so many plastic bags all stuffed together; a flammable noisy jumble of colour-blocking and sponsorship logos.”

The book includes a lot of working-class Scottish slang so readers will encounter words like cagoule, dreich, bothy, gallus, stour, haar, scunner, sleekit, boak, twitcher, ghillie, and uisge beatha.

This novel is not for the faint of heart; it is a raw and gritty, harrowing read.  Readers need to be prepared for brutal violence of many types.  I experienced almost overwhelming anger and sadness.  The only real scenes of tenderness and peace are those between James and Mungo when they find sanctuary from the violence of their daily lives in each other.  The sense of foreboding is so overpowering that I found myself having to take short breaks from reading. 

This is one of the most beautifully written heart-breaking books I’ve ever read.