Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates

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The temporal setting is for me fascinating and important. “Shuggie Bain” was set over the period 1981-1992 with Shuggie from 5-15. No year is specified her but an Auld-Firm reference sets the book firmly in 1992-93 with Mungo approaching 16: so that in both calendar years and ages this book is a sequel to “Shuggie Bain”. There is none of the sentiment or accidental empathy here that accrued to the mother figure in ‘Shuggie Bain’, by dint of the reader spending so much time in her sozzled company (hogging the limelight from her son, whose name after all does adorn the cover). Apart from those trigger points, there is also the ‘wee matter’ of the Glaswegian dialect. Admittedly I had to carefully reread many sentences to make sure I got the gist of what was being said or inferred, not to mention having to Google quite a few words that I did not understand at all (here I think a brief glossary would have been helpful for international readers). I cannot even begin to imagine what listening to the audiobook must be like. When Mungo and Jodie go to her rescue by fabricating an excuse as to why she is needed in their flat, and Mungo innocently asks as to why she stays with the bastard, Mrs Campbell launches into a long diatribe justifying her husband’s appalling behaviour: “Ye’re too wee to know anything about men and their anger.”

Mungo by Douglas Stuart | Goodreads Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart | Goodreads

Not at all. My father has vowed that when he dies, he will free all his slaves. The will is already written. I will have to find some other way of making my fortune.’ Mungo clapped Fairchild on the shoulder. ‘So you see, I will never make a penny out of that institution you revile so much. Whereas you’ – he grinned – ‘will depend entirely on the slave trade to make your living.’ Nothing he did seemed to make her happy. He had been worrying her heart lately, which he knew because she had told him so. He had tried not to laugh when she had said it, but all he could picture was her heart walking around the living room in her chest and folding a white hanky in agitation.” The man was trembling slightly. Years spent hiding from daylight in dark pubs had given him the nervous reactions of a whippet pushed out into the snow, and he had the small darting eyes and long twitching limbs of a mistreated dog." Born in Glasgow, Scotland, after receiving his MA from the Royal College of Art in London, he has lived and worked in New York City. He shrugged. ‘I do not judge you. I do not lay claim to any superior moral virtue. But the one sin of which I am wholly innocent is this: I will not play the hypocrite and weep false tears for the choices I have made. If you agree with me, I urge you to support the motion.’If it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s snobbery and one-upmanship. People trying to pretend they’re superior. Makes it so much harder for those of us who are”.

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The audience filed through two doors, one for ‘aye’ on the right, and one for ‘no’ on the left. The queue for the ‘ayes’ was noticeably longer, but a surprising number turned the other way. Mungo watched the count from his seat, the grin on his face never wavering. In a second timeline, his mother sends him off with two of her “friends” from Alcoholics Anonymous. Suffice it to say, they are not on the wagon and their intentions are not pure. I couldn’t begin to understand the mother’s reasoning. And the next minute we are on a dangerous fishing trip where Mungo meets James, a Catholic, a little older, a pigeon fancier.

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Then why have I heard of it from five different people?’ Manners took a step closer. ‘They say you had her in the organ loft of Trinity chapel, while the choir were rehearsing.’ If you kill him, you will be hanged for murder.’ Fairchild prodded Manners with the toe of his shoe. ‘Is he worth that?’

Mungobooks - AbeBooks - Poole Mungobooks - AbeBooks - Poole

Fifteen-year-old Mungo shows the kind of vulnerability that makes people want to cradle him — or crush him. He’s the tender Scottish hero of Douglas Stuart’s moving new novel, “Young Mungo.” It’s a tale of romantic and sexual awakening punctuated by horrific violence. Amid all its suffering, Mungo’s story makes two things strikingly clear: 1) Being named after the patron saint of Glasgow offers no protection, and 2) Stuart writes like an angel. Nods of agreement; he was preaching to the converted. Abolitionist sentiment ran high among the Cambridge undergraduates. The main protagonist is the fifteen year old Mungo Hamilton, son of a largely absent alcoholic single-mother (herself still under 35) and largely bought up by his older sister Jodie (now 17) in a Glasgow housing scheme. While Jodie is both well liked and studious, the two year older Hamish (Ha-Ha), despite his short stature and “speccy” appearance is a widely feared gang leader, head of a Protestant group of Billy Boys who engage both in crime and in brutal fights against the neighbouring Catholic gang from the next settlement – the Royston Bhoys. What really surprised me about the novel – and puts it in a different class than ‘Shuggie Bain’ altogether – is how bleak it is. If you thought the author’s Booker-winning debut was dark, you ain’t experienced nothing yet. I honestly think no publisher would have touched this with a barge pole if it had not been for Stuart’s commercial and critical success to date. I appreciate the fact that more queer love stories are making their way into the world, EVEN THOUGH this is NOT the kind of queer content I want to read.

Mungo eBook version

Do you know that feeling when one of your colleagues at work comes down with a stomach flu, and then one by one your coworkers drop like flies, and you know it's only a matter of time until it hits you too? I have to say I was especially impressed by this as I wasn't a huge fan of Stuart's first novel, the Booker Prize-winning Shuggie Bain. In many ways this feels very similar to SB, however where that one felt like an exercise in writing, something that had been worked on for so long it lost a bit of its life, this felt ripe with experience. Mungo is one of the most endearing, sympathetic and vivid characters I've read about in a long time. That makes the events of this novel all the more powerful. You are rooting for him so badly, that every misstep or hiccup in his life deeply affect the reader. We’ll look after ye, Mungo. Nae worries. We’ll have some laughs, and you can bring yer mammy some fresh fish”. I never read Shuggie Bain but saw it got lots of accolades. So, I was excited to listen to Stuart’s second book, Young Mungo. But I really struggled with it. It’s not a bad book. In fact, it’s incredibly well written. But it’s such a sad, deep, dark, ugly, depressing story, I had to force myself to keep with it at times. Again the story is set among the mean streets of Glasgow, but this time we're in the 1990s. Mungo Hamilton is 15, the youngest of three Protestant children. His mother Mo-Maw is an alcoholic and rarely seen at their small flat. Instead, he is raised by his sister Jodie, only a year older but with a steeliness and wisdom that belies her youth. Eldest brother Hamish is feared gang leader who spends most of his time organizing battles against the hated Catholics. Mungo is lost, but he does make a friend in James, a young neighbour who races pigeons. The time they spend together is an ocean of calm amid the stormy seas of Mungo's everyday life. Intertwined with the main plot is an account of a fishing trip that Mungo is sent on with two older men, and a sense of foreboding is hard to ignore.

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart | Waterstones

I usually enjoy reading grey characters but this time, not a single one of them gained my loyalty or sympathy. The one to come closest was Mungo's elder sister Jodie. You have heard a great deal this evening about the supposed evils of slavery. But has anyone here ever been to the great tobacco plantations of Virginia, or the cotton fields of the Mississippi? Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates, where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation.He leaned on the despatch box, as comfortable as if he were leaning on the mantelpiece of his drawing room enjoying a cigar.