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    Young Mungo
    Young Mungo
    Young Mungo
    Audiobook13 hours

    Young Mungo

    Written by Douglas Stuart

    Narrated by Chris Reilly

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    A story of queer love and working-class families, Young Mungo is the brilliant second novel from the Booker Prize–winning author of Shuggie Bain

    Douglas Stuart’s first novel Shuggie Bain, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, is one of the most successful literary debuts of the century so far. Published or forthcoming in forty territories, it has sold more than one million copies worldwide. Now Stuart returns with
    Young Mungo, his extraordinary second novel. Both a page-turner and literary tour de force, it is a vivid portrayal of working-class life and a deeply moving and highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men.

    Growing up in a housing estate in Glasgow, Mungo and James are born under different stars—Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic—and they should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all. Yet against all odds, they become best friends as they find
    a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. As they fall in love, they dream of finding somewhere they belong, while Mungo works hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his big brother Hamish, a local gang
    leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. And when, several months later, 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 try 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 the literary world, Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the bounds of masculinity, the divisions of sectarianism, the violence faced by
    many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.

    Editor's Note

    Beautifully tragic…

    Mungo, a 15 year-old living in an abusive Protestant household in early 1990s Glasgow, only knows violence, yet he somehow retains his gentle heart. The discovery of his verboten friendship with James, a Catholic boy and kindred spirit, leads to a powerful ending. Stuart’s exploration of masculinity among working-class men and the turmoil between Catholics and Protestants in Scotland is as beautifully written as it is tragic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateApr 5, 2022
    ISBN9781705056554
    Author

    Douglas Stuart

    Douglas Stuart (PhD Harvard) is senior professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He controls the use of fourteen ancient languages and is the author of several books, including Studies in Early Hebrew Meter, Old Testament Exegesis: A Primer for Students and Pastors, and Favorite Old Testament Passages.

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    Reviews for Young Mungo

    4.5/5

    194 ratings17 reviews

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    • 5/5
      One of the most heartachingly beautiful books I’ve ever read. Stuart’s characters are written so well that I feel I know them and now that I’m done reading, I feel real grief that they’re gone. I loved Mungo instantly as if he was my own. Will I ever stop thinking about him? Stuart weaves the story together using flawless structure and gorgeous prose, all the while capturing the way toxic masculinity beats all the light out of young men. This story is gutting. The violence comes from all sides and cuts deep throughout. It is VERY hard to bear witness to, even if only in the imagination.

      CW: physical brutality, parental emotional abuse, and violent SA

      I could have used a CW myself, so I will give you one. There is non-stop heavy physical brutality, parental emotional abuse, and violent sexual assault content towards one of the sweetest 15 year old boys imaginable in this book. It is just absolutely gutting. I sobbed through most of the book and even though I know he’s a fictional character, there are so many real Mungos out there that I could break into a million pieces and never recover.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Brilliantly written, crude and sweet at the same time. Loved it from beginning to end.
    • 5/5
      What a joy to read. Life is what you make it. Thank you Douglas Stuart.
    • 3/5
      I LOVED his debut Shuggie Bain, this one was similar but with less likeable characters.
    • 5/5
      This book is so heartbreakingly beautiful. I felt Mango come to life and at first I didn’t think I’d like it but then I found myself thinking of Mango.. please take a chance on this book. It’s beautiful.
    • 5/5
      I do not think I will ever forget this story. Young Mungo will stay in my mind for a long time.
    • 5/5
      Heartbreakingly beautiful. I will read everything Stuart writes and I am almost never devoted to any author.
    • 3/5
      Read the Harvard Book Store First Edition Club edition. I ended up caring about Young Mungo much more than I thought it would given the setup. I am not sure how I feel about the novel as a whole - like if I see someone kicking a dog I will feel bad and try to intervene, but not feel thankful about it afterwards. I didn't gain any insights through reading this, and mostly wanted to avert my eyes.Also, please stop with the needless discordant timelines - it adds nothing and only confuses the reader.
    • 5/5
      “Mungo’s capacity for love frustrated her. His loving wasn’t selflessness; he simply could not help it. Mo-Maw needed so little and he produced so much. So that it all seemed a horrible waste. It was a harvest no one seeded, and it blossomed from a vine no one tended.”Mungo is a fifteen-year old boy, growing up in Glasgow. To say he has a rough childhood would be a wild understatement- He has an unstable, alcoholic mother and a domineering, abusive older brother. Mungo, a protestant, is also attracted to a Catholic neighbor boy, which is verboten in Scotland at that time. This is not an easy read. It can be relentlessly bleak at times but the writing is terrific and the reader can not help but cheering this poor boy on, despite the myriad of obstacles thrown in his way. I adored Stuart’s last novel, Shuggie Bain and with his latest, he has proven to be a new force in the literary world.
    • 4/5
      In the opening pages of this book, 15-year-old Mungo Hamilton is on a bus with two men who are taking him on a fishing trip. This is no fun-filled holiday; it’s immediately clear the expedition is doomed from the start. Why is Mungo there? Who are these men? Before this can be explained, we are taken to a point in time six months earlier.Mungo is the youngest child of three children. His mother, Maureen, is only in her mid-30s but alcoholism and poverty have taken away any hope of a stable and happy life. Mungo’s older brother Hamish lives with his girlfriend and their baby daughter, and is the leader of a prominent gang of Protestant youths. Mungo’s sister Jodie is close to finishing secondary school and hopes to attend university. She worries about where that would leave Mungo, since Maureen is prone to disappearing for days on end. Mungo is a loner with several emotional and mental health issues, and is devoted to his mother despite her neglect. One day Mungo meets James, a Catholic boy his age who, like Mungo, is often left on his own. As their friendship develops into something more, they attract unwanted attention, both for daring to love another boy, and for crossing religious lines.The narrative moves back and forth between the fishing trip, which just gets more horrific, and Mungo’s daily life on the housing estate, which grows increasingly violent. While well-written, this makes for very difficult reading. The novel ends with a shred of hope for Mungo, but at significant cost.
    • 4/5
      Full of horror, full of heart. A wonderful book but perhaps a tad too similar to Shuggie Bain, released too soon, to bowl me over in the same way his debut did. That being said, it is really, really good.
    • 4/5
      My heart broke for young Mungo and his friend James. Mungo is Protestant and James is Catholic. They should be sworn enemies, and Mungo's brother Hamish, a gang leader, makes sure that Mungo knows that he should not be friends with a Catholic. However, James and Mungo are actually falling in love.Mungo's mother is an alcoholic and after the father of the children died, she began taking up with other men, and abandoning her children. Mungo's sister, Jodie, an intelligent young woman, takes on the task of caring for Mungo, making sure he is fed, but Mungo doesn't want to give up on his mother. His mother sends him off on a fishing trip with 2 men she met at AA, not realizing they were sexual predators. The trip goes terribly wrong. The is heartbreaking and shows the danger that young queer men face, especially in a society that refuses to accept them.
    • 4/5
      The last half of Stuart’s latest work merits 5 stars. It’s riveting, brutal, fast-paced and beautifully crafted. Sadly, the first half merits 3 stars. It was so slow moving in a few spots that I had to prod myself to continue reading it. I’m glad I did. “Young Mungo” is a unique and heartbreaking coming of age story that tackles important topics.
    • 4/5
      I did not read Shuggie Bain because I kept hearing how it was "so Scottish". I figured there would be cultural background that I just wouldn't understand (like NW is very English and without understanding the school and housing systems, it just isn't the same--I think).But this was chosen for Camp ToB, so there you go.And this was fantastic. It is very Scottish, but at the same time it's the terminology and setting that make it so Scottish. The story itself could, really, take place just about anywhere worldwide. Mungo, 15, Protestant in Glasgow, the youngest of 3 kids of single mom Mo Maw (Maureen, alcoholic, not yet 40). He suspects he is gay, but has no real words to explain. But he loves his only friend, the Catholic James, and James loves him back. But his brother and mother seem to suspect and are worried. His sister, Jodie, doesn't much care. She has mothered him more than his mother, and will be the one in the family to escape the Glasgow tenements as she plans for college.Mungo is trying to navigate his world--where boys and men fight in gangs that he has less than no interest in, their neighbor Mrs Campbell feeds them when their mother does not, their mother disappears for days, Jodie manages school and work and mothering Mungo, Hamish has a baby of his own. He loves his mother but also hates her, he is terrified of his brother and fighting, and loves Jodie with all his heart.The writing here is fantastic and I can't explain why. I had to look up a lot of words--things like warming closet and cagoule. I figured out doocot on my own. I thought the Catholic/Protestant fights were a Northern Ireland thing, maybe they are also?The only thing that didn't work for me was the very, very end. Will it work, or is it meant to give Mungo time?
    • 5/5
      This book is not for the faint of heart! As in "Shuggie Bain', the author writes of a poor, Scottish, alcoholic mother, and the coming of age of a boy. That is where the similarities end. This is the dark, disturbing tale of a boy struggling with the dawning reality that he is gay, in a community that abhors homosexuality. Mungo lives with almost daily violence at the hands of his brother, molestation, the twitches of Tourette's syndrome, and unexpectedly connects with a lovely young man that changes his world. The audio edition's reader has a beautiful, thick Scottish brogue, and the prose is exquisite which makes the suffering and the love palpable. A painful read, yet somehow the window into the world of poverty and isolation seems important. I won't soon forget this novel!
    • 5/5
      I read Stuart’s debut novel Shuggie Bain, which won the 2020 Booker Prize, and was left in awe so I was excited to receive an advance reading copy of Stuart’s second novel. Young Mungo is no less stunning and impactful.The novel has two interwoven plot lines but both focus on Mungo Hamilton, a fifteen-year-old living in East End Glasgow in the 1990s. In one plot line, Mungo is on a weekend fishing trip to an isolated loch with two men (Gallowgate and St. Christopher) his mother (Mo-Maw) met at an AA meeting. The trip is intended to toughen him up; Mo-Maw says, “’That’s what ah wanted you to do this for. Masculine pursuits. It’ll make a man out of ye.’” From the beginning Mungo is not entirely comfortable; for example, Gallowgate means to give a friendly smile “but it was without warmth, and Mungo thought he saw a flash of menace cross his thin lips.” The second storyline shows Mungo’s family life and describes the events leading up to the fishing trip. Mungo’s father is absent and his mother is neglectful. Mo-Maw is away from home for long periods of time as she looks for a man to care for her; when she is at home, she drinks. Hamish, Mungo’s older brother, lives with the 15-year-old mother of his daughter; he is the leader of a Protestant gang involved in criminal activities and violence against Catholics. It is Jodie, Mungo’s older sister, who acts as a surrogate mother and looks after Mungo as best she can.Mungo is a lonely, sensitive soul living in an environment where he does not fit in, surrounded as he is by toxic masculinity and sectarian violence. He meets James, a kindred spirit. They dream of finding somewhere they belong, but they must keep their relationship a secret because homosexuality is totally unacceptable and punishable by ostracism and violence. To complicate matters, James is Catholic, and Mungo is expected to hate Catholics. Mungo is named after St. Kentigern, the patron saint of Glasgow. He is aptly named. He is a shy, gentle, kind person capable of “big, big love.” He is full of self-loathing; he has been described by various people as “Idiot. Weakling. Liar. Poofter. Coward. Pimp. Bigot” so he has come to think of himself as unworthy. He believes that he is to blame whenever things go wrong around him, going so far as to think of himself as “the ruiner of all good things.” Despite his mother’s selfishness and neglect, he remains steadfast in his love for her: “I don’t blame her. I just try to love her.’” The relationship between Mungo and Mo-Maw is similar to the mother-son relationship in Shuggie Bain. Mo-Maw, however, is not as sympathetic as Agnes. Jodie describes how important Mungo is to his mother: Mungo “was Mo-Maw’s youngest son, but he was also her confidant, her lady’s maid, and errand boy. He was her one flattering mirror, and her teenage diary, her electric blanket, her doormat. He was her best pal, the dog she hardly walked, and her greatest romance. He was her cheer on a dreich morning, the only laughter in her audience. . . . her mother’s minor moon, her warmest sun, and at the exact same time, a tiny satellite that she had forgotten about. He would orbit her for an eternity, even as she, and then he, broke into bits.” Yet this woman abandons him, leaving home for weeks without letting him know where she is so he imagines she may be dead. And she sends him on a fishing trip with two men she has met once at an AA meeting and doesn’t even know exactly where they’re taking her son.The novel examines homophobia in an intolerant culture: “There was nothing more shameful than being a poofter; powerless, soft as a woman.” A man who rapes another man objects to being labeled a homosexual: “’Call me that again an’ ah’ll knock ye out.’” James’ father will let his son live at home only if he has a girlfriend. Mo-Maw exhibits the same attitude. Because Mungo has never had a girlfriend, Mo-Maw becomes concerned: “Hamish had gotten a girl-child pregnant and she hadn’t ruffled a feather. But now she stared into his eyes and she looked genuinely worried.” A neighbour is a bachelor, a euphemism for homosexual, and after Mungo has shown him neighbourly friendliness, Mo-Maw lashes out, “’Stay away frae him, Mungo. Dae ye hear? Ah’ll be damned if ah raise a bachelor.’” She sends her youngest son with two virtual strangers, one of whom tells Mungo that their task is to “Make a man out of you yet.’” Hamish also becomes obsessed with Mungo’s inability to conform to traditional cultural masculine norms. Men are expected to suppress tender emotions (“It was foolish to say something sweet that the scheme could use against you later”) so they become, “knotted-up men” who resort to drinking away their sorrows and beating their wives because anger and pride are the only acceptable masculine emotions that can be expressed. When Hamish’s gang steals and vandalizes a business, he insists Mungo attend, but Mungo’s concern for an injured gang member results in drawing police attention and Hamish’s ire: “’The polis have been going door to door asking after us. They want to know who’s been robbin’ the builders. It’s only a matter of time afore some spiteful auld cunt grasses, and all because you couldnae man up.’” Hamish also wants Mungo to be aggressive, threatening violence and worse if Mungo does not show up for a planned fight against a Catholic gang. The losing gang members may retreat but they continue “bragging of their glories, screaming threats of retaliation . . . [keeping] their chests puffed out until they could be safe in their mammies’ arms again.”The imagery is amazing: “The man’s voice had a raspy quality, like he had a throatful of dry toast” and “he had ribs like the hull of an upturned boat” and “he was smacking his lips in agitation like a woman who couldn’t believe the price of milk nowadays” and “In their nylon tracksuits [the gang members] looked like so many plastic bags all stuffed together; a flammable noisy jumble of colour-blocking and sponsorship logos.” The book includes a lot of working-class Scottish slang so readers will encounter words like cagoule, dreich, bothy, gallus, stour, haar, scunner, sleekit, boak, twitcher, ghillie, and uisge beatha.This novel is not for the faint of heart; it is a raw and gritty, harrowing read. Readers need to be prepared for brutal violence of many types. I experienced almost overwhelming anger and sadness. The only real scenes of tenderness and peace are those between James and Mungo when they find sanctuary from the violence of their daily lives in each other. The sense of foreboding is so overpowering that I found myself having to take short breaks from reading. This is one of the most beautifully written heart-breaking books I’ve ever read.Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley. Quotations may not be exactly as they appear in the published version.
    • 5/5
      Named after the patron saint of Glasgow, Mungo Hamilton is coming to realize that he is gay in a merciless city that demands conformity. At its core, Glasgow is a working-class town where the jobs have been replaced by rampant poverty and alcoholism. It’s an insular place where the people identify as either Protestant or Catholic and often express their fealty with violence and hatred. A sense of hopelessness pervades life for many. At its core, this is the story of Mungo’s coming-of-age in such an environment.Stuart tackles a broad array of themes in his novel. Underlying everything are the socioeconomic issues surrounding working-class life, including poverty, job loss, substance abuse, and class. But family is another focus. Fifteen-year-old Mungo has an absent father, an alcoholic mother with a penchant for disappearance, and two siblings. His sister, Jodie, takes responsibility for just about everything but longs to escape. As the leader of a brutal teenage gang, Hamish nurtures hatred for Catholics and the establishment. In the face of self-loathing, Mungo longs for his mother’s love, the recognition of his two older siblings, and a meaningful human relationship.Of course, the central theme of the story involves gender. Stuart deftly develops a tender relationship between Mungo and his friend James. Both boys are largely on their own in this hostile world. James’ widower father is away a lot working the oil rigs in the North Sea, while all of Mungo’s family is focused elsewhere. The boys’ relationship develops around James’ homing pigeon coop. This serves as a sanctuary from the toxic masculinity and indifference that both experience. This relationship takes on a Shakespearian quality since both enter it from opposite warring camps: one is Protestant and the other Catholic. The true joys of reading this novel are its vivid depiction of interesting characters and Stuart’s flare for the local dialogue. Even the minor characters are noteworthy because they portend some grim possible futures for Mungo. Poor-Wee-Chickie is a gay man who regrets his decision to stay in Glasgow. Mrs. Campbell, the Hamilton’s caring neighbor, is a loyal spouse to an abusive out-of-work husband. St. Christopher and Gallowgate are a couple of ex-cons who are brutal drunks with pedophilic urges.The narrative has two plotlines set a few months apart. One follows the boys’ developing relationship and familial efforts to discourage what they perceive as less than masculine identities. Hamish forces Mungo to participate in a brutal religious fight, while James’ father requires him to seek a girlfriend. The other story involves a fishing trip with St. Christopher and Gallowgate designed by his mother to give Mungo some much needed male bonding. Both storylines have unfortunate outcomes. Clearly, Stuart is too good a writer to have either story end happily, but he subtly does suggest some hope for the pair in the final pages.