Booker Prize-winning author Douglas Stuart puts queer love to the test in 'Young Mungo'
When novelist Douglas Stuart writes about his home city and its people, he wants his reader to feel immersed in working-class Glasgow.
His 2020 book “Shuggie Bain,” about a boy dealing with his mother’s alcoholism and his own sexuality, won the Booker Prize. This year, he published his second novel, “Young Mungo,” about a queer romance that leads to a perilious fishing trip.
Stuart gives his readers vivid descriptions of Glasgow. But he wants them to take away something universal about being an outsider, struggling with addiction and caring for one another, he told Here & Now’s Emiko Tamagawa during a live event at WBUR’s CitySpace.
“I think many people can relate to Shuggie, because they’ve felt like an outsider in the place that they live,” says Stuart. “Or they can’t fit in. Or they’ve tried to change themselves in some way.”
Both novels dive into
