I first mentioned Young Mungo, the forthcoming second novel by Douglas Stuart, on the Shuggie Bain topic, which was created by snotface in the Everything Else forum on March 8th, 2021. I’ve been looking forward to reading Young Mungo since I read on August 20th, 2021 that Douglas Stuart was writing a second novel. I have posted it here as the subject matter of the novel is more appropriate to the Sawatdee Gay World forum. It is due to be published in hardback on April 14th, 2022.

Young Mungo.jpg

If you are interested in purchasing a hardback copy, Amazon here in the UK is showing the price as £12.99, whereas Waterstones (a UK book store chain) is showing a special signed hardback edition priced at £16.99. A review by Waterstones is available on the Shuggie Bain topic, but is repeated below for ease of reading:

From the author of the Booker-winning modern classic Shuggie Bain comes another emotionally powerful and compassionate portrayal of sexuality and community set in urban Glasgow, as two young men on either side of a sectarian divide start to develop feelings for each other.
From Booker-prize winner Douglas Stuart an extraordinary, page-turning second novel, a vivid portrayal of working-class life and a highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James.

Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in the hyper-masculine and violently sectarian world of Glasgow's housing estates. They should be sworn enemies if they're to be seen as men at all, and yet they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. As they find themselves falling in love, they dream of escaping the grey city, and Mungo works especially hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his elder brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold.

But the threat of discovery is constant and the punishment unspeakable. When 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 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 literary fiction, Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the bounds of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by so many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.

Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 2928377071639
Number of pages: 400
Dimensions: 234 x 153 mm

Source: Waterstones

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