Shuggie Bain

Hugh “Shuggie” Bain is a lonely, sensitive boy growing up in the run-down council housing of 1980s Glasgow, Scotland. Margaret Thatcher’s policies have left the people of the industrial city out of work, a drug epidemic is brewing, and Shuggie’s mother, Agnes, dreams of owning her own home, leafing through the pages of clothing catalogues and ordering a little happiness on credit. When her husband leaves the family, she finds ever-greater solace in drink, and spends her social security benefits on cans of extra-strong lager. Shuggie’s teenage siblings are quick to find a way to escape from home, leaving their little brother to look after their mother by himself. Shuggie, meanwhile, is trying to be a normal boy, but he’s discovering that he is anything but “normal”. And his only support is his mother, who is sinking into alcoholism.

In 2020, Douglas Stuart's novel won the Booker Prize, and the BBC, in collaboration with the production company A24, is preparing a television series.

Douglas Stuart (1976) grew up in Glasgow, the youngest of three siblings. His father left the family when Stuart was small. He was raised by his mother, who battled alcoholism and addiction and died when the author was 16. He grew up with his older brother. He graduated from the Scottish College of Textiles and then the Royal College of Art. Today, Douglas Stuart lives in New York, where he works as a fashion designer. His novel Shuggie Bain won the Man Booker Prize in 2020, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and was a finalist for the National Book Award.