It had a gangly forward motion like a big-balled, bandy-legged weasel, head swung low, eyes always fixed on the prey ahead, ready to lunge with either a fist or a silver blade. The author poignantly describes this pressure to conform: “This swagger was a uniform as ubiquitous as any football top. However, he's also made to feel severely self-conscious about his nature and mannerisms which don't conform to the macho walk of other “Proddie boys”. Naturally Mungo is severely teased about his name.
Gradually we get to intimately know about the struggle of this young man who was named after the patron saint of Glasgow. The two older men who lead him into the wilderness grow increasingly sinister and there is a building tension to this storyline intercut with scenes leading up to this expedition. The novel is cleverly framed around a fishing trip that Mungo's mother forces him to join in order to toughen him up. The result is a beautiful and devastatingly moving romance that's also about a personal quest for acceptance in a community that cannot accept or allow difference. Moreover, it's the queer 'Romeo & Juliet' story I always longed to read because Mungo falls for Catholic teen James. This clash is also brought centre stage in this new novel because Mungo is born into a Protestant family and gets drawn into the resulting street violence with Catholics.
Another issue which is touched upon in “Shuggie Bain” that I wanted to read more about was the sectarian conflict in Glasgow between Catholics and Protestants. However, the characters in “Young Mungo” are distinct and deal with the challenges they face in very different ways. Superficially the two novels might seem similar as they include characters from the same socio-economic background in the 1990s who are also wrestling with issues to do with poverty, addiction and toxic masculinity. So I was thrilled to find that “Young Mungo” is almost exclusively about Mungo himself.
There are many touching scenes with Shuggie and it primarily focuses on his perspective, but it's really the story of his mum Agnes. As much as I loved Douglas Stuart's debut novel “Shuggie Bain” and its complex portrayal of a mother's addiction to alcohol, I was left longing to know a bit more about Shuggie himself and what it's like to be a young working class gay boy in Scotland.
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