Young Mungo

Douglas Stuart can write, no question about that, and like the (even greater) writer of "Lolita," he fearlessly takes on potentially salacious material with a masterful literary style. But while Nabokov's artistry is a rhapsodic expression of a doomed pedophile's lust and aching love, Stuart fails in his attempt to situate young Mungo's sexual coming of age in a love story that rises above its sordid environment. We aren't even allowed to respect Mungo's love for his alcoholic mother through all her execrable, self-loving failures to nurture or protect him; instead, we must witness rape so brutal that some readers may resent having to endure it--all to demonstrate to us just how cruelly and miserably poor Mungo has been treated. But if Mr. Stuart cannot find a way to grow beyond his memorable depictions of the victimization of (his?) gay life amidst the anomie of economic collapse brought on by Thatcherism (oh yes! there're plenty of Baddies, from drunken moms to toxic males to corporate rapacity), he may face a diminishing audience of readers who are willing to come back for more of the same, with each edition showing ever more horrifying degradation. Shuggie Bain was a victim, but Young Mungo? Ohh, they did *that* to him?

Sometimes I feel too many stories of gay male youth follow similar paths, but that’s the guilt and imposed self-shame they adopt in order to survive. In Mungo’s youth, it was difficult to be his true self. So many others who aren’t LGBT live similar tragedies due to poverty, race, broken parents, etc. Sometimes we are forced to accept, hoping for a glimmer of hope at the end.

Life is chaos mixed with madness and disrupted by little events that create a path to follow. Or be chased. Everything you do is being observed, evaluated, recorded, analyzed, and tangled with everyone else's lives in ways that defy the easy understanding and motivation that drives the contacts between people. Life is complicated and complex enough that it is unpredictable and interesting in spite our efforts to control it. Serendipity and unpredictable random events determine the history and legacy of families and friends. Opportunities knock us down and disasters pick us up in the daily interactions that keep changing everything that we try to understand as we try to predict the future.

This book had a slow start, although it was probably the fact that the spoken words were all written in Scottish dialect. The telling of the story was nonetheless as powerful as I have ever read. I could see myself in bits and pieces. Good luck, Mungo!

I stumbled across this book and it was of interest to me as my grandparents are from outside of Glasgow and the reviews were so good. Douglas has a very beautiful style of writing, and this story is so beautifully written. I could not put it down. The story is very sad, with a bit of humor and tenderness sprinkled through out. It reminds me somewhat of Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes and 'Tis). Upon finishing this book I immediately purchased Shuggie Bain, which is also brilliant. One of the best new authors I have come across in a very long while. I hope we hear much more from Douglas.