Shuggie Bain

by

Douglas Stuart

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Shuggie Bain recounts the early years of the titular protagonist, Shuggie. The novel contains five parts; the first and last sections depict Shuggie in the present, while the middle three sections chart his earlier years living in three Glaswegian neighborhoods.

The reader first meets Shuggie in the South Side of Glasgow in 1992, where he has taken up work at a grocery store, Kilfeathers. His days pass routinely and without much thought or joy. At night, he returns to a boarding house, where his landlord doesn’t care that he’s only fifteen. The apartment is dreary and ill-appointed. Shuggie knows his mother would be ashamed of the state of his living quarters, but he intends to improve his space as soon as he saves enough money. One of his neighbors, Mr. Darling, has taken an inappropriate interest in him, and though this makes Shuggie uncomfortable, he knows he can get some money out of the lonely man and tries to play this to his advantage.

The narrative the jumps back to 1981 in Glasgow’s Sighthill neighborhood, where Shuggie lives with his parents, Agnes and Shug, his grandparents, Wullie and Lizzie, and his two older siblings, Catherine and Leek. Agnes mourns her youth one night as she plays cards with her middle-aged friends and neighbors, disappointed with the way her life has turned out. She is ashamed to being living with her parents, and she resents her husband for failing to make her happy as he promised to do when she left her first husband for him. The tension between them is first seen when he comes home from driving his cab during the ladies’ card night, clearing out the other women. He leaves almost immediately, telling Agnes not to wait up. She copes as she typically does, going to her room to drink from a secret stash of liquor. Agnes has a flash back of a vacation she and Shug took to the seaside years ago, where the shiny boardwalk lights and escape from the day to day gave them hope. Or it did, until Agnes drank too much, causing a scene at their hotel. Shug retaliated, physically and sexually abusing Agnes.

Back in 1981, Shug continues to carouse while driving his cab on the night shift, meeting up with Agnes’ friends and his coworker Joanie Micklewhite after finishing an evening of driving. On one of these nights, Shuggie sits with a drunk Agnes. During their time in Sighthill, everyone recognizes that Agnes has developed a drinking problem and tries to encourage her to manage her addiction, but Shug’s philandering exacerbates her condition. Catherine has taken a fancy job in the city, hoping to make money for her cash-strapped family and save for her own future. Leek, on the other hand, copes by making himself scarce, running away to his hideout in a nearby warehouse. Shuggie tries to help his mother by keeping her company and dancing to keep her entertained, but even his affection can’t combat her disease. Even at this young age, Shuggie is perceived as different because of his feminine mannerisms. On this night, Agnes has a violent drinking episode when Shug returns home and ignores her. She sets fire to the curtains in her room, nearly killing herself and Shuggie. Shug is able to put out the fire, but the incident is enough to convince him a change is needed. He persuades Agnes to move out of her parents’ apartment and into subsidized housing in Pithead, on the edge of the city, promising her that their life will improve. Once they arrive and find that the house is a dump, Shug announces to Agnes that he’s leaving her for Joanie Micklewhite.

After Shug leaves in 1982, Agnes and her children begin their new life in the Pithead house. The family, especially Agnes and Shuggie, are treated as outsiders by their new community. The neighbor women—Bridie Donnelly, Jinty McClinchy, and Colleen McAvennie—peg Agnes as an alcoholic, while Shuggie is mocked and bullied for his effeminate behavior. Agnes’s alcoholism only grows worse. Catherine spends more time away from home, planning to marry Shug’s nephew, Donald Jnr. Leek tries to avoid the house and can tell from its exterior whenever Agnes is drunk. Shuggie, in turn, is left alone with his mother, who he tries to prevent from hurting herself or embarrassing herself with her drunken phone calls to Joanie. Agnes does whatever it takes to fuel her drinking, using the family’s benefit money or pawning her expensive belongs or items stolen from her kids. Leek and Catherine attempt to help their little brother in small ways; Catherine takes Shuggie to visit Shug before she leaves with her new husband for their new life in South Africa, and Leek tries to teach Shuggie how to walk more masculinely. Eventually, both Wullie and Lizzie die. With Leek increasingly absent, Shuggie is usually alone to handle his mother’s drinking. As Shuggie gets older, he begins to pick up on his mother’s drinking patterns, noticing which of her friends—women like Jinty McClinchy and sleazy men in town like Lamby—encourage her alcoholism. His anxiety around Agnes’ drinking has physical ramifications, too, from nervous bowels to bedwetting.

One day, Shuggie comes home to find the house in order and his mother sober. Agnes attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and eventually gets a job working the night shift at a gas station, which keeps her out of trouble. During one of her shifts, she meets a cab driver named Eugene. On their first date, she learns he is her enemy, Colleen McAvennie’s, brother, but he convinces her to give him a chance. During this period, Agnes is the happiest she has ever been, and Shuggie begins to open up to his mother again. At one point, Shug comes to visit, hoping to sleep with Agnes, but she turns him away. Despite Agnes’s progress, Eugene remains curious about Agnes sobriety and wonders why she can’t drink now that she’s better. He pressures her to have one glass of wine, telling her he wants to be normal, and eventually she relents. She immediately spirals out of control, coming home heavily intoxicated, which infuriates Leek and scares Shuggie so much that he pees his pants.

After the incident with Eugene, Agnes’s alcoholism becomes worse than ever. In Shuggie’s attempts to help his mother, he is often left alone and vulnerable, put in situations where he is bulled and even sexually assaulted. Agnes uses all their money to buy alcohol, and the family goes hungry. One day, Shuggie comes home to find Leek pressed on top of his mother, trying to stop the bleeding coming from her slit wrists. Shuggie is sent off to Shug and Joanie’s house while his mother recovers, though Agnes eventually comes to collect him. Even after this incident, her alcoholism escalates. Shuggie often skips school to care for her. He continues to be bullied for his queerness. One day, Agnes drunkenly kicks Leek out, and he leaves permanently. Before Leek leaves, he tries to tell Shuggie that Agnes won’t ever get better, but Shuggie is not ready to believe it. Agnes arranges a house swap, promising Shuggie that they will both start fresh in this new place. She dumps all her alcohol down the drain. He wants desperately to believe her.

In the fourth section, which takes place in 1989, Agnes and Shuggie move to a new apartment in the East End. The same day they move, Agnes begins drinking again. Shuggie tries his best to fit in at his new school, but he is labeled “strange” and bullied almost immediately. He feels certain that nothing has changed or ever will. Still, he goes along when his new neighbor Keir, who Shuggie has a crush on, asks him to keep his girlfriend’s friend company. This is how Shuggie meets Leanne Kelly, who also has an alcoholic mother and is questioning her sexuality. The two bond, exchanging horror stories about their mothers.

One day soon after, Shuggie comes home to find Agnes drunk and agitated. She kicks him out the same way she kicked out Leek, calling Shuggie a cab and telling him not to come back. Shuggie goes to Leek’s apartment, begging his brother for money to pay for the cab. While at Leek’s, Agnes sends over two more cabs, making her sons pay the fee. In the first, she sends a bag of canned custards, and in the second, she sends her telephone. Leek and Shuggie understand she is trying to say goodbye, and Shuggie hurries home. While Agnes doesn’t follow through on this veiled threat to kill herself, her drinking does not stop. On another day a few months later, Shuggie comes home to find Agnes passed out. He cleans her up and removes her clothes for her. As he ministers to her unconscious body, he comes to terms with the fact that, like Leek has tried to tell him, she is not going to get better. Standing there, Shuggie notices that Agnes has thrown up in her sleep. Her head is tilted back, and she begins to choke on her bile. Before Shuggie can bring himself to do anything, she dies.

In the final section, the narrative returns to Shuggie in the present, where he lives in his South Side room. A year has passed since Agnes’s death, and Shuggie is remembering her funeral. Leek came for her cremation, but neither Shug nor Catherine showed. Shuggie reflects on his mother, whose birthday it would be, as he goes about his day. He stops by a bakery for strawberry tarts on his way to meet Leanne. Together, they find Moira Kelly, Leanne’s mother, whose alcoholism has left her homeless. Shuggie watches, infuriated, as Leanne cares for her mother. Moira barely tolerates her daughter’s attention and openly mocks them both. Leanne changes Moira’s dirty clothes and feeds her, telling her about the exciting social life her brother has been leading. Moira soon runs off, eager to meet her drinking buddies. As the two teenagers leave, Shuggie tells Leanne that he wishes they could go dancing like Leanne’s older brother. Leanne laughs, not believing Shuggie can dance. As they continue along the river, Shuggie runs ahead. He begins to dance wildly, making Leanne laugh with joy.