A review by jkneebone
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

dark sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Told in dual timelines that take place within the same year, Young Mungo follows 15-year-old Mungo, who lives in the East End of Glasgow with his mother, Mo-Maw, his older sister Jodie, and his older brother Hamish. Mo-Maw is an alcoholic who frequently abandons her children for weeks on end, Hamish is a gang leader who torments his younger brother, and Jodie is doing her best to balance her academic promise and desire for the future with caring for herself and Mungo in light of Mo-Maw's frequent absences. Youngest child Mungo is sensitive and different; he dislikes violence and lets his mother coddle him, unable to resent her behavior in the same way Jodie does. In the bulk of the timeline - the 'before' - we see Mungo struggle through school (he's not a good student), confrontations with Hamish, and trying to help Jodie; he also befriends another boy who lives in a neighboring tenement building. James is seven months older and occupies himself with raising pigeons while his father, who works on an oil rig, is away for months at a time. Mungo and James quickly become close, but the fact that James is Catholic while Mungo is Protestant puts them at risk if anyone discovers their relationship, especially Mungo's brother Hamish, who leads a Protestant gang.

In the shorter timeline - the 'after' - Mungo is sent by Mo-Maw on a fishing trip with two men she knows from AA. Calling themselves St Christopher and Gallowgate, they take Mungo on a multi-bus journey to a remote loch. The men are former convicts and heavy alcoholics, but only after Mungo is there does he realize the real danger he might be in.

I read this for a book club, as it is not the kind of book I would pick up normally, and though I was glad to have the chance to branch out, it was still not my cup of tea. I think it was well written, if perhaps a tad longer than it needed to be (although despite the length, it felt like a quick read; the writing was very engaging). All of the characters were so well developed and interesting, even if most of them were more unlikable than not. The setting was quite vivid as well, although it threw me off that the era wasn't made clear earlier on - maybe there was a hint that I missed, but while I got that it was the 90s eventually, I spent way too much time wondering at the beginning. 

Overall I interpreted this as a sort of commentary on poverty and abuse, the cyclical/heritable nature of trauma, and the deep claws of homophobia. Mo-Maw got pregnant young and holds this against her children; we see this pattern playing out with Hamish and Sammy Jo
and with Jodie's aborted pregnancy
. The impact of alcoholism and drug addiction can be seen in myriad characters both major and minor.
Mungo fears his life taking the same path as Mr. Calhoun's, another example of repetition throughout the ages, and the response that James and Mungo's families have to their queerness show how fearful they are of it. Not to mention the extreme irony of Hamish calling James a child molester and how the family knows that is Bad and wants to use it as an excuse to blame him for corrupting Mungo, but don't actually care that they are sending Mungo away with two known child molesters.
This book definitely leaves you with a lot to think about, and I really felt for (most of) the characters, Mungo especially, who is being squished and fit into a role that doesn't fit him, but can't see any way out given the opportunities life has presented to him.

I'm conflicted about the ending - it definitely improved my feelings on the book overall, but I wish that it hadn't taken so long to get to that point.
I'm also not sure how I feel about the author leaving what actually happens to Mungo up in the air - on the one hand, I liked being shown a glimpse of the changed Mungo without seeing him definitely doom himself to that future; on the other hand I think it's a bit of a cop-out to leave such an open ending.
This book was definitely good, and interesting; I'm looking forward to talking about it with others, but I still wouldn't say it was my cup of tea. It was good, but I didn't love it; I'm sure many readers will.

Heavy, heavy topics throughout - definitely read the content warnings if you're sensitive about pretty much anything. There is a lot of sad, bad stuff going on.
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