BOOKS

Shuggie Bain

BY DOUGLAS STUART

Glasgow in the 1980s. The working class is struggling with unemployment brought about by Margaret Thatcher’s policies. Coal mines are shutting down. Deserted by her philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes Bain has to fend for herself and her three children – Catherine, Leek and Shuggie – on a council housing estate.

Agnes is a proud woman who is also an alcoholic. She tries to maintain some semblance of dignity, insisting on doing her hair and makeup whenever she leaves the house – even if it is just a trip to collect her benefit pay and then on to the off-licence for lager. Inevitably this facade starts to crumble as she becomes lost in an