Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates

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The prose is vivid and clear and superb. The dialogue zings with authenticity. The psychologies are startingly sound and the sociology unabashedly hyper-realistic. The connection to emotions is genuine and painful and the breath is shallow and hurried. The blurb makes it seem like it's a forbidden love story between a Protestant boy and a Catholic one. This forms just a small part of the storyline. The main story is more like a bildungsroman, but not in a good way. I MIGHT have liked this a tad better if I had read it. But as an audiobook, it was a dud. The only reason I grabbed this was because I had heard so much about ‘Shuggie Bain’. I can’t make a comparison between the two because I haven’t read ‘Shuggie Bain’. (And now I am certain that I never will.) There is such an ominous tone to the story and you can't help thinking that this won't end well for our young protagonist. But you read on hoping for a chink of light in the darkness of his miserable life. Douglas Stuart is masterful storyteller and he has created an unforgettable character in Mungo. It's a powerful, heartbreaking tale from one of the very best writers around. 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.

Book review: Young Mungo, by Douglas Stuart - The Scotsman Book review: Young Mungo, by Douglas Stuart - The Scotsman

Young Mungo is a heartbreaking tale and tender love story of a sensitive teenager, brutalised by his origins and the society he lives in. Fifteen year old Mungo lives in poverty in a Glasgow housing scheme with his single mum and older sister Jodie. His father was killed on the streets in the ongoing violent and senseless warfare between protestant and catholic gangs. His mother was only a teenager herself when her first child, Mungo’s older brother Hamish was born, and unable to cope on her own with three youngsters took to the bottle to numb her pain. Never a good mother, she neglects Jodie and Mungo, leaving them alone for weeks at a time with no food in the house while she spends any money she has on alcohol and pursues her latest love interest. Despite all this Mungo loves her dearly, even though the more pragmatic Jodie tells him he should see her for what she is. It is harsh, ugly, and frightening, and it comes from events so hideous that I was sure I would lose my rag and start screaming incoherently at the Kindle. And it was, in this reader's angry, bitter judgment, the only and the best way he could have behaved. It was a boy, cooked in a bath of rage, becoming the only man that bath dissolved the fatty, weakening childness off of him to be. He eventually meets the ‘owner’, James. He’s a quiet lad who lives across from Mungo’s part of the scheme (housing scheme) and traps and raises pigeons. I never knew about these towers, cobbled together from scrap tin and timber to house pigeons. No planning regulations, apparently. with some of the most gorgeous writing and intimate storytelling there ever was. From tender to bloodthirsty brutal…..

The book doesn’t feel like effortless writing. It tries too hard to justify the tag of 'literary fiction' and is just as verbose as the blurb indicates. Some analogies work. Most are superfluous and/or superficial. Flowery prose appeals to me only if it is accompanied by a strong plot. When there are miles and miles of prose and barely any signs of a plot, I lose my interest. If it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s snobbery and one-upmanship. People trying to pretend they’re superior. Makes it so much harder for those of us who are”. which has me conflicted. because this book is dedicated to “all the gentle sons of glasgow,” and yet, all this shows is how that gentleness will be punished and abused. there is some really tough content to get through in this. this gave me ‘a little life’ vibes in the sense that this story is about suffering, violence, and the dangers of love. 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.

Mungo by Douglas Stuart | Goodreads Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart | Goodreads

Make a list of bad things that could happen in a literary fiction. You will find every item on that list in this novel. It felt like misery porn. Not one good thing happens to anyone! Sensitive readers, stay away from the book. I won’t give a list of trigger warnings so just trust me on this: every single triggering issue is in this storyline. Some of these scenes were way too graphic. Critics, armchair and otherwise, have not only been decrying ‘Young Mungo’ as ‘Shuggie Bain’ in a different cagoule, but are already lamenting the poor departed muse of author Douglas Stuart, who seems perpetually fixated on Glasgow. It’s a deeply felt - heartbreaking-powerful & beautiful complicated story of a young gay man dealing with traditionalism, tolerance, open-mindedness, responsiveness, observance, freethinking, noncompliance, and ‘young love’….. Both books have a Saints name and legend at their heart. The legend of St Agnes (and “I am on fire. I do not burn”) forms the basis of an impromptu sermon in “Shuggie Bain” when Agnes first attends AA about how alcoholism consumes everything – something which of course is at the tragic heart of that novel. Here Mungo is explicitly named by his (Protestant) mother after Glasgow’s Patron Saint – and the Saint’s four miracles (featured on the Glasgow crest) “the bird that never flew, the tree that never grew, the bell that never rang, the fish that never swam” are also subtly and brilliantly reversed at key and tragic points in the novel (with pigeons that will never fly again, an attempted conflagration, a man named Bell as well as a phone call with consequences, an aborted fishing trip and series of near drownings).Some of the alcoholics were eager for the meeting to be over, others were worried about what would happen when it was”. I didn’t understand that the conflict between Protestants and Catholics raged in Scotland as Ireland. It’s the 1990s and fifteen year old Mungo lives in a Glasgow housing estate. He’s a soft soul in a hard world. His older brother is the leader of a gang and is trying to toughen Mungo up. His mother is a drunk and more absent than present. His sister tries to run the household while living her own life. Mungo meets James, a Catholic, and they fall in love. The only thing worse in this milieu than a cross sect romance is a queer romance. Apart from those trigger points, there is also the ‘wee matter’ of the Glaswegian dialect. Admittedly I had to carefully reread many sentences to make sure I got the gist of what was being said or inferred, not to mention having to Google quite a few words that I did not understand at all (here I think a brief glossary would have been helpful for international readers). I cannot even begin to imagine what listening to the audiobook must be like. My thanks to RB Media and NetGalley for the ALC of “Young Mungo”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook. I’m very sorry this worked out so badly.