Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates

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Douglas Stuart opens our eyes, minds, and hearts to fear, love, family brokenness, manliness, manhood, masculinity, (gut wrenching examination from every angle) > fragile, rugged, confidence, power, force, muscled, typical traits, ‘Boys Will Be Boys’……a deep look at the traditional and negative effects. The boys become friends, and when Mungo later realises James is Catholic, he keeps it secret. Both boys are lonely, neither has had any real friends, and as they gradually grow closer, they begin to feel a romantic attachment which takes them both by surprise.

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart | Goodreads

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, after receiving his MA from the Royal College of Art in London, he has lived and worked in New York City. 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. One elephant in the room I want to get out of the way first: This is not ‘Shuggie Bain 2.0’, even though it features a similar setting and milieu. And an alcoholic mother called Mo-Maw. When Jodie asks her brother Mungo: “What on earth would you know about the ways of men, eh?”, what she should be warning him about are the ways (and wiles) of women. When I read Shuggie Bain I at least thought that there was an attempt at something in the storytelling... This is the author’s second book, one largely written, if not fully completed, at the time of “Shuggie Bain's" success (although at the time it was under the working title “Loch Awe”) – and if anything my quote is even truer of this novel which is both at times lighter but also in places much darker than its predecessor and which also reads very much as one cut from the same literary cloth.

She had asked for violence out of a gentle soul and it made her feel like she had trampled a patch of fresh snow." In spite of everything, Mungo adores Mo-Maw (as Shuggie Bain did his mother), and when drink changes her, he’s the one who cleans her up and gets her to bed. The kids then refer to her as Tattie-bogle, which is the Scottish word for scarecrow.

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart - Pan Macmillan Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart - Pan Macmillan

It is set in the Glasgow of the early 1990s and SEEMS to capture the gloomy part of the city aptly. Yes, it seems cold and uncomfortable and discouraging, but at the same time, there is warmth and love and hope. I heard the author say that the anxiety and chewing on things (including remotes!) comes from his own experience. He sure does understand all of these people, and somehow, he escaped, so that gives me hope that it is possible. 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.with some of the most gorgeous writing and intimate storytelling there ever was. From tender to bloodthirsty brutal…..