6/12/2023 0 Comments Young mungo book review![]() ![]() Their relationship is evocative and tender, and the dovecote becomes a sanctuary, and they dream of escaping Glasgow. The heart of this book is Mungo’s friendship with a local Catholic boy, James, who looks after pigeons. Sectarian violence plays a big part in the schemes. ![]() Also featuring in Mungo’s life is his psychopathic brother Hamish, leader of the local billy boys, who put me in mind of Begbie from transporting. It’s sister Jodie who mostly cares for him, a smart girl whowants away from Agnes, who she largely despises as a bad mother. ![]() Mungo lives in a tenement with his mother ‘mo maw’ (who he loves) and her drunken alter ego ‘Tattie-bogle,’ a shambolic and occasionally pathetic figure, some of whose drunken antics put me in mind of Agnes from Shuggie Bain. In many ways ‘Young Mungo’ feels like a sequel to the authors previous Booker prize winning title, as it picks up in the nineties, just where we left Shuggie. Perhaps he had mined so much of that setting that it would feel overly familiar. Before I started ‘Young Mungo’ I wondered if Douglas Stuart could use the same world as ‘ Shuggie Bain’ and make it feel like a different book. ![]()
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