Young Mungo, Douglas Stuart
Young Mungo, Douglas Stuart
5 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Young Mungo

Author: Douglas Stuart

Narrator: Chris Reilly

Unabridged: 13 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 04/05/2022


Synopsis

A story of queer love and working-class families, Young Mungo is the brilliant second novel from the Booker Prize–winning author of Shuggie Bain

Douglas Stuart’s first novel Shuggie Bain, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, is one of the most successful literary debuts of the century so far. Published or forthcoming in forty territories, it has sold more than one million copies worldwide. Now Stuart returns with
Young Mungo, his extraordinary second novel. Both a page-turner and literary tour de force, it is a vivid portrayal of working-class life and a deeply moving and highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men.

Growing up in a housing estate in Glasgow, Mungo and James are born under different stars—Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic—and they should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all. Yet against all odds, they become best friends as they find
a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. As they fall in love, they dream of finding somewhere they belong, while Mungo works hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his big brother Hamish, a local gang
leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. And when, several months later, Mungo’s mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in Western Scotland with two strange men whose drunken banter belies murky pasts, he will need to summon all his inner strength
and courage to try to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future.

Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism and giving full voice to people rarely acknowledged in the literary world, Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the bounds of masculinity, the divisions of sectarianism, the violence faced by
many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.

About Douglas Stuart

Douglas Stuart (PhD Harvard) is senior professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He controls the use of fourteen ancient languages and is the author of several books, including Studies in Early Hebrew Meter, Old Testament Exegesis: A Primer for Students and Pastors, and Favorite Old Testament Passages.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Doug on January 09, 2023

If only I could, I would give this many more than 5 stars - heartbreaking, breathtaking and very memorable. Shuggie Bain, Stuart's Booker winning (and SHOULD have been NBA winning. over the definitely inferior Interior Chinatown) debut novel, was my favorite book of 2020, and unless I read something......more

Goodreads review by jessica on April 17, 2022

this gave me ‘a little life’ vibes in the sense that this story is about suffering, violence, and the dangers of love. this didnt quite emotionally wreck me like ‘a little life’ did, which left me feeling sorrowful and empty. this story is leaving me feeling angry and provoked instead. which has me co......more

Goodreads review by Shawn on February 21, 2025

Douglas imma get you for this.......more

Goodreads review by Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer on September 28, 2023

Shortlisted for the 2023 Polari Prize Note mild spoilers in review The author of the magnificent “Shuggie Bain” does it again. I read “Shuggie Bain” in early mid July 2020 and immediately called it as the winner of the 2020 Booker Prize (around a week before even the longlist was announced) – a predic......more

Goodreads review by David on December 18, 2022

Young Mungo is Douglas Stuart's return to Glasgow's east end, this time in the immediate aftermath of Thatcherism. With echoes of Shuggie Bain, the main character here is Mungo, a 15-year-old gay teenager, coming of age in an environment where any deviation from a narrowly defined masculinity is per......more