Shuggie Bain evokes pathos in a way that I never knew a novel could. I will admit that I read this novel a few months ago; but I can safely say that I needed no reminder of how it made me feel. Any of my friends will testify to the fact that I still talk about it - maybe too much.
It is Glasgow in the 1980s; the city is synonymous with poverty and decrepitude: the grey streaks of industry caution poverty and pain. Amongst this scene of gauze we find the beating heart of our story: the heart-wrenchingly gentile soul of Hugo — Shuggie — Bain, whose little life is prematurely burdened by uncertainty.
“Sadness made for a better houseguest; at least it was quiet, reliable, consistent.”
Although nominally comparable with his father, the similarities between the respective characters stops there. The void between them cuts across the book. Absent, vituperative and manipulative, Shuggie’s philandering father embodies the false hope instilled within the plot. Though physically present -- the majority of the time -- Agnes, Shuggie’s mother, is mentally distanced. A lighthouse of sorts, the guiding light she provides for Shuggie is sporadic and eclipsed by her dependency on alcohol. At the mere age of six, Shuggie is already having to tread himself through the capricious waves of alcohol and emotion which are left behind.
Grappling with his identity, Shuggie wants nothing more than to be a normal boy; but his reality could not be further from this. With personal revelations and consistent shifts in his housing situation, our eponymous character is both physically and metaphorically displaced with tragic effect.
An auto-fictional reflection on his time growing up, Douglas Stuart’s debut novel is torn by paradox: whether it is the colourful descriptions about something so grey or the main character who acts as an antithesis for the life he represents. Stuart takes command over our hearts and places them in Shuggie’s hands, so we feel his every tremor and tremble, to the extent that we almost feel betrayed by Douglas Stuart for putting us through so much pain. Aside from the gripping, page-turning impact of the book, it seems that Stuart is motivated by the demographic purposes of Shuggie’s story: he wants us to weep for our isolated hero in order for us to understand the pain experienced amongst the people of Glasgow in this period.
Compelling and captivating, this book is a must-read and joining Suggie Bain on his journey is a must-do.