Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart (Book review)

This is a beautiful, visceral love story between two boys (Mungo & James) that’s embedded in the intense world of a Glasgow housing estate in the 1990s. It’s heartbreaking, but also, in its own way, shot through with hope too?!

The boy’s secret relationship is shaped by the deep sectarian divide between Protestants and Catholics, as well as the violent presence of Mungo’s older brother, Hamish, a feared bully. The idea of Mungo falling in love with another boy, and a Catholic one at that, is treated as unthinkable, treason.

The story between Mungo and James is a tragic love story, almost Shakespearean. Will they find their way to each other? Can they push through all the fear and shame to real tenderness?

Mungo is a charming narrator: sincere, vulnerable, and brave, peaking over the lines and finding solace amongst deprivation.

The cast deepens the emotional weight of the novel. Maureen, the alcoholic mother, is a supremely sketched portrait and her relationship with Mungo, distorted by neglect and parentification, is another emotional centre of the book. Jodie, the older sister, is desperate to escape, desperate to better herself, though her dreams are also increasingly precarious. Then there’s the lonely bachelor who lives on the estate… the men who are drafted in to teach Mungo about masculinity… the hapless boyfriend… the sexual predator…

The novel captures a complex mix of love, community, betrayal, and a painful lack of accountability.

The Glaswegian vernacular adds texture and authenticity, grounding the story in a very real place and time. But what stayed with me most was the tenderness between Mungo and James, the hopeful tenderness of Mungo.

The novel is visceral. At times it’s shocking in its violence; bodily in how it portrays pain and vulnerability. Yet it also captures the hedonism and intensity of youth, giving voice to a kind of love story we don’t see often enough.

Read if you’re looking for something that will move you deeply and you enjoy following a vivid, charismatic narrator through a difficult time.