Shuggie Bain

Douglas Stuart's debut novel, "Shuggie Bain", won the Booker Prize in 2020 and was shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction in the same year. It was also named the Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year in 2020 and longlisted for the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize. The novel is set in 1981 Glasgow, where families are struggling to survive. Agnes Bain, a mother of three, is abandoned by her husband and finds herself trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends into alcoholism, her children try to save her, but one by one they abandon her to save themselves. However, her son Shuggie holds out hope the longest, and he believes that he can help his mother escape the hopeless situation. "Shuggie Bain" lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride, and is a powerful and important story about addiction, courage, and love. The novel has been compared to the works of Alan Hollinghurst, Édouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, and has been praised for its intimate, compassionate, and gripping portrayal of the characters.