Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart won the 2020 Booker Prize and at the time I seem to remember that there were a lot of people who were very surprised, complaining that it was difficult to read the Scots/Glaswegian dialect, but really there’s very little in it.

The setting is Glasgow where Agnes Bain has walked out on her husband and taken her three children with her. She goes off with a taxi driver called Hugh Bain, he’s more exciting than her husband it would seem, but neither of them have planned things, and Hugh has walked out on his wife and four chidren. With nowhere to live they end up moving in with Agnes’s parents. Life isn’t at all as Agnes had imagined it to be and she has developed a serious alcohol problem.

Unsurprisingly Hugh has turned out to be a terrible philandering husband. When Agnes has a melt down they have to move out of her parent’s home and Hugh rents a flat in a remote pit village, but of course the pit is closed, everybody is unemployed, it’s a desert with windows, and Agnes’s drink problem gets worse and worse. As you would expect the home life of the children is a disaster, but the two older ones leave home and Shuggie is the one who is left behind to deal with Agnes who as soon as she gets her benefit money spends it all on booze and fags.

This book is very autobiographical and is a grim read at times, especially when you remember that in reality there are so many children having to cope with addicted parents, it’s heart-breaking. However, Douglas Stuart has managed to triumph over his dreadful childhood and has become a successful fashion designer and of course author.

You can read Jack’s far more detailed review here.