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specificwonderland 's review for:
Shuggie Bain
by Douglas Stuart
I picked this up because I like ridiculously sad books, whether it's bleak Russian vignettes or slogs (Cancer Ward), A Little Life, The Goldfinch, anything like that where it's heartbreakingly long and nothing ever goes right, and we see the stoicism of the main character (usually male, but Precious also fits this trope) to keep trucking thinking, 'Well I guess that's life,' never truly breaking down, expecting more, or pitying himself. Those are my kind of books. I'm always looking for that kind of book.
Little Shuggie is just such an archetype. His mom is a drunk focused on superficial appearances and his taxi driver dad rebooted his life in a project nearby with 6 or 7 new kids. His talented artist of a brother is too exhausted to deal with him and his sister ran off to South Africa the first chance she got, never coming back. He doesn't really know anything else, (except for the one beautiful year his mom got sober) but bears his cross solemnly. He's constantly tormented by the scheme kids, called all iterations of gay slurs. He barely attends school. He has no friends. He worries over his mother and dutifully steers her as best he can, as a primary school aged kid.
About halfway through the book, I thought the author was really trying to illustrate the idea that addicts lives are never isolated, you think you're only hurting yourself but what if there's a helpless kid along for the ride? Alternate title, "Detachment: Your Addiction Isn't Yours Alone". I also thought this book did a great job of world building/scene-setting, alternate title, "The Glaswegian Neighbors of Shuggie Bain".
I was very absorbed in his storyline but I didn't find it too terribly sad until we get to the last 5-10% of the book. Agnes, his ne'er do well wreck of a mother, house swaps her shitty burned-out mining project apartment for a hustling, busy Glasgow apartment using the classifieds, something pretty common I guess because of the dragging pace of the government response to requesting subsidized housing changes. It was like The Holiday, if it was about subsidizing housing and Kate Winslet was a raging alcoholic dragging a 15 year old kid into urban Glasgow and Cameron Diaz' house was closer to bars. There's a glimmer of hope we all experience. They both want a fresh start: Agnes wants to quit drinking and Shuggie wants to be a normal kid, not bullied. Shuggie weakly reunites with his older brother who was put out by the mother years before. Maybe things will get better.
The last section of the book in Glasgow proper was really affecting and I kept turning the pages, crying, thinking, 'This is why it's listed as such a sad book,' it was monstrously brutal and achingly real. His brother was evicted by an absentee mother, ignored by all father figures and has no real coping skills, except to survive. It obviously follows then he doesn't have the bandwidth - emotionally, financially, even as a family member - to take on another kid. He coaches Shuggie as best he can but his callous dismissal and explaining away of the situation is what got me. Leek knows the inevitable conclusion of Agnes' situation. The damage done to these kids with respect to trust, the concept of family (a veritable turnstile of 'Uncles' and their mother's endless tirades calling her entire address book drunkenly cussing them out), the point of life, it's all ruined from Agnes' drinking. And it doesn't only affect the mother's relationship with each kid.
The mom is terrible and that makes Shuggie's life hard, which is easy to grasp (but hard to live through with the characters). What I didn't see coming is that the mom also screwed up her other kids, so the siblings don't have any attachment to each other. You can understand a terrible mom, but to also have to swallow the kids being distant as a result of their PTSD/emotionally devoid because the mom taught them that, that's really hard to take. He's attached to his mom because anything else he ever reached out for, kicked his ass. The final hope of his dad coming is short-lived but you expect it from big Shug, who was always a piece of shit. You don't expect it from Leek, who was an artistic soul, ruined by his upbringing, working at a chalk factory.
The kids' relationships with each other are ruined too. And that's so painful to think about.
It's cliche but holy shit, these hurt people do nothing but hurt people for hundreds of pages.
Little Shuggie is just such an archetype. His mom is a drunk focused on superficial appearances and his taxi driver dad rebooted his life in a project nearby with 6 or 7 new kids. His talented artist of a brother is too exhausted to deal with him and his sister ran off to South Africa the first chance she got, never coming back. He doesn't really know anything else, (except for the one beautiful year his mom got sober) but bears his cross solemnly. He's constantly tormented by the scheme kids, called all iterations of gay slurs. He barely attends school. He has no friends. He worries over his mother and dutifully steers her as best he can, as a primary school aged kid.
About halfway through the book, I thought the author was really trying to illustrate the idea that addicts lives are never isolated, you think you're only hurting yourself but what if there's a helpless kid along for the ride? Alternate title, "Detachment: Your Addiction Isn't Yours Alone". I also thought this book did a great job of world building/scene-setting, alternate title, "The Glaswegian Neighbors of Shuggie Bain".
I was very absorbed in his storyline but I didn't find it too terribly sad until we get to the last 5-10% of the book. Agnes, his ne'er do well wreck of a mother, house swaps her shitty burned-out mining project apartment for a hustling, busy Glasgow apartment using the classifieds, something pretty common I guess because of the dragging pace of the government response to requesting subsidized housing changes. It was like The Holiday, if it was about subsidizing housing and Kate Winslet was a raging alcoholic dragging a 15 year old kid into urban Glasgow and Cameron Diaz' house was closer to bars. There's a glimmer of hope we all experience. They both want a fresh start: Agnes wants to quit drinking and Shuggie wants to be a normal kid, not bullied. Shuggie weakly reunites with his older brother who was put out by the mother years before. Maybe things will get better.
The last section of the book in Glasgow proper was really affecting and I kept turning the pages, crying, thinking, 'This is why it's listed as such a sad book,' it was monstrously brutal and achingly real. His brother was evicted by an absentee mother, ignored by all father figures and has no real coping skills, except to survive. It obviously follows then he doesn't have the bandwidth - emotionally, financially, even as a family member - to take on another kid. He coaches Shuggie as best he can but his callous dismissal and explaining away of the situation is what got me. Leek knows the inevitable conclusion of Agnes' situation. The damage done to these kids with respect to trust, the concept of family (a veritable turnstile of 'Uncles' and their mother's endless tirades calling her entire address book drunkenly cussing them out), the point of life, it's all ruined from Agnes' drinking. And it doesn't only affect the mother's relationship with each kid.
The mom is terrible and that makes Shuggie's life hard, which is easy to grasp (but hard to live through with the characters). What I didn't see coming is that the mom also screwed up her other kids, so the siblings don't have any attachment to each other. You can understand a terrible mom, but to also have to swallow the kids being distant as a result of their PTSD/emotionally devoid because the mom taught them that, that's really hard to take. He's attached to his mom because anything else he ever reached out for, kicked his ass. The final hope of his dad coming is short-lived but you expect it from big Shug, who was always a piece of shit. You don't expect it from Leek, who was an artistic soul, ruined by his upbringing, working at a chalk factory.
The kids' relationships with each other are ruined too. And that's so painful to think about.
It's cliche but holy shit, these hurt people do nothing but hurt people for hundreds of pages.