Shuggie Bain

The misery in this book is unrelenting. The working class in 1980's Glasgow endure unemployment and resulting poverty with a judgmental outlook that punishes anyone who stands out as getting above themselves, and cruelty to anyone perceived as weak or vulnerable. In the midst of all this is the Bain family. Their mother, Agnes Bain, left her marriage to an upstanding but boring man to marry Hugh Bain (Shug), a volatile, womanizing taxi driver who beat her and eventually abandoned her. She becomes an alcoholic. Her two older children get out of the house as soon as they can, but her youngest, Shuggie, dotes on her and tries to protect her from herself. Shuggie is vulnerable because he is a delicate boy, particular about his dress and his speech, and he prefers to play with dolls and other girls' things rather than sports. The book follows Shuggie and his mother as Shuggie grows up. There are moments of kindness and beauty, but they make the misery that inevitably follows that much more heartbreaking. I kept reading, though, because I hoped for some redemption. It was hard won and subtle, but it eventually came. I think this is a really fine novel.

This really hit home for me, having grown up as the child of an addict. The circumstances were different, but it captured the anxiety, the worrying, the way I could never enjoy the good moments because I didn't know if they were real or how long they would last. It was a hard read, but there was beauty in the pain.

Welp. This is one majorly depressing read. The book does an excellent job of transporting the reader to 1980s Glasgow, in the home(s) of an alcoholic single mother — and for that reason, I personally didn't find it to be an enjoyable escape. It does an excellent job of getting the reader to feel what it's like to have an alcoholic parent in the poorest parts of the city, and the struggles of drug and alcohol abuse and joblessness in the Thatcher era. You find yourself rooting for Agnes each time she gets sober, all the while with the sinking knowledge it won't last. You find yourself feeling deeply, deeply sad for the queer boy who loves his mother despite it all, maybe because he doesn't fit in anywhere else.

While the story is immersive and compelling, the lower rating is purely because I found it a bit tedious at times;I think it's long and drags on, but that did add to the endless feeling of the cycles of poverty and alcoholism. I found the Glasgowegian vernacular to be almost as difficult to read as it is to hear, but it got easier as the book went along, and certainly added to the authenticity.