-
Shuggie Bain
- Narrated by: Angus King
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

pick 2 free titles with trial.
Buy for $30.44
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Young Mungo
- By: Douglas Stuart
- Narrated by: Chris Reilly
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born under different stars—Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic—they should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all. Their environment is a hyper-masculine and sectarian one, for gangs of young men and the violence they might dole out dominate the Glaswegian estate where they live. And yet against all odds Mungo and James become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds.
-
-
Suffering Sappho!
- By Richard Stewart on 04-12-22
By: Douglas Stuart
-
Lie with Me
- A Novel
- By: Philippe Besson, Molly Ringwald - translator
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.
-
-
Memoir or fiction, either way it's enthralling.
- By Keith G on 05-08-19
By: Philippe Besson, and others
-
Harlem Shuffle
- A Novel
- By: Colson Whitehead
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Ray Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.
-
-
What a rare pleasure
- By Lisa Braden on 09-27-21
By: Colson Whitehead
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
How Beautiful We Were
- A Novel
- By: Imbolo Mbue
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Janina Edwards, Dion Graham, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are made - and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interests.
-
-
As relevant as it is heart-wrenching
- By Anonymous User on 10-18-21
By: Imbolo Mbue
-
Young Mungo
- By: Douglas Stuart
- Narrated by: Chris Reilly
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born under different stars—Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic—they should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all. Their environment is a hyper-masculine and sectarian one, for gangs of young men and the violence they might dole out dominate the Glaswegian estate where they live. And yet against all odds Mungo and James become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds.
-
-
Suffering Sappho!
- By Richard Stewart on 04-12-22
By: Douglas Stuart
-
Lie with Me
- A Novel
- By: Philippe Besson, Molly Ringwald - translator
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.
-
-
Memoir or fiction, either way it's enthralling.
- By Keith G on 05-08-19
By: Philippe Besson, and others
-
Harlem Shuffle
- A Novel
- By: Colson Whitehead
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Ray Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.
-
-
What a rare pleasure
- By Lisa Braden on 09-27-21
By: Colson Whitehead
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
How Beautiful We Were
- A Novel
- By: Imbolo Mbue
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Janina Edwards, Dion Graham, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are made - and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interests.
-
-
As relevant as it is heart-wrenching
- By Anonymous User on 10-18-21
By: Imbolo Mbue
-
The Death of Vivek Oji
- A Novel
- By: Akwaeke Emezi
- Narrated by: Yetide Badaki, Chukwudi Iwuji
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One afternoon, in a town in Southeastern Nigeria, a mother opens her front door to discover her son's body, wrapped in colorful fabric, at her feet. What follows is the tumultuous, heart-wrenching story of one family’s struggle to understand a child whose spirit is both gentle and mysterious. Raised by a distant father and an understanding but overprotective mother, Vivek suffers disorienting blackouts, moments of disconnection between self and surroundings.
-
-
an emotional story
- By Barbara S on 08-22-20
By: Akwaeke Emezi
-
Transcendent Kingdom
- A Novel
- By: Yaa Gyasi
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her.
-
-
Would have benefited from a different narrator
- By Richard Stewart on 09-11-20
By: Yaa Gyasi
-
My Policeman
- A Novel
- By: Bethan Roberts
- Narrated by: Piers Hampton, Emma Powell
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is in 1950s Brighton that Marion first catches sight of Tom. He teaches her to swim, gently guiding her through the water in the shadow of the city's famous pier, and Marion is smitten - determined her love alone will be enough for them both. A few years later, near the Brighton Museum, Patrick meets Tom. Patrick is besotted, and opens Tom's eyes to a glamorous, sophisticated new world of art, travel, and beauty. The two lovers must share him, until one of them breaks and three lives are destroyed.
-
-
Just beautiful
- By Leighann Litcher on 09-19-22
By: Bethan Roberts
-
Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
-
-
Before Purchasing
- By JLDLOfficial on 08-13-22
By: Hernan Diaz
-
A Visit from the Goon Squad
- By: Jennifer Egan
- Narrated by: Roxana Ortega
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the listener does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.
-
-
Deep and dazzling novel, brilliantly read!
- By J. W. Coop on 06-29-19
By: Jennifer Egan
-
Normal People
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation - awkward but electrifying - something life changing begins. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another.
-
-
Difficult, but Worth It
- By kdiz on 04-03-20
By: Sally Rooney
-
Klara and the Sun
- A Novel
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Sura Siu
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?
-
-
Well Worth Having Waited For!
- By otherdeb on 03-04-21
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Promise
- By: Damon Galgut
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled potential; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt.
-
-
Excellent novel
- By ALG on 11-09-21
By: Damon Galgut
-
To Paradise
- A Novel
- By: Hanya Yanagihara
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Catherine Ho, BD Wong, and others
- Length: 28 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please. The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him.
-
-
Fabulous
- By Patty66215 on 01-15-22
By: Hanya Yanagihara
-
Educated
- A Memoir
- By: Tara Westover
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University.
-
-
The Other Side of Idaho's Mountains
- By Darwin8u on 03-28-18
By: Tara Westover
-
The Grapes of Wrath
- By: John Steinbeck, Robert DeMott
- Narrated by: Dylan Baker
- Length: 21 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shocking and controversial when it was first published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer prize-winning epic The Grapes of Wrath remains his undisputed masterpiece. Set against the background of Dust Bowl Oklahoma and Californian migrant life, it tells of Tom Joad and his family, who, like thousands of others, are forced to travel west in search of the promised land. Their story is one of false hopes, thwarted desires, and broken dreams, yet out of their suffering Steinbeck created a drama that is intensely human, yet majestic in its scale and moral vision.
-
-
Wish I could give it 10 stars!
- By P. Minor on 07-18-14
By: John Steinbeck, and others
-
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
- By: Shehan Karunatilaka
- Narrated by: Shivantha Wijesinha
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida—war photographer, gambler, and closet queen—has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali.
-
-
Interesting and very creative
- By Coco likes books on 01-11-23
Publisher's summary
This is the unforgettable story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.
Shuggie’s mother Agnes walks a wayward path: She is Shuggie’s guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good - her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion’s share of each week’s benefits - all the family has to live on - on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs.
Agnes’ older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Meanwhile, Shuggie is struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is “no right”, a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her - even her beloved Shuggie.
A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction.
Featured Article: Audible Essentials—The Top 100 LGBTQIA+ Listens of All Time
While LGBTQIA+ creators have been around for millennia, it’s only recently that we’ve been hearing more diverse, more queer-authored, and more queer-performed stories about the entire spectrum of LGBTQIA+ experiences and identities. This list—just like the community it represents—is meant to be fluid. But most importantly, it’s meant to celebrate and reflect on the issues faced by LGBTQIA+ people everywhere.
More from the same
What listeners say about Shuggie Bain
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- SuperShopper
- 02-18-21
There’s far too much real pain and sadness in the world to spend any time listening to this tale of woe
This is very well written, and the quality of the reader is great, except his dialect is sometimes so thick I had to rewind to get it right. The story is such a sad, tragic tale of an alcoholic woman who cannot and will not take care of her own children, nor herself, I just found myself angry all the time. Over all, I hated Agnes, hated the subject, and it drug on for far too long. I loved Shuggie, but the life he led was bold, italics, underline DEPRESSING! I really can’t think of one person I could recommend this audible to. But if I can keep someone from wasting 18 hours on it, then I will have done a good deed. You probably won’t believe me anyway because it has gotten many good reviews, but I really really REALLY hated it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
148 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 01-23-21
Just a sad story
Sad story of alcoholic mom and neglected abused children - not sure what got this to top ten book for NYTimes? Depressing book - perhaps because we do such a poor job addressing such tragic health issues..would not recommend unless you want to be depressed.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
63 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- David
- 10-19-20
Glaswegians under Pressure
The characters in “Shuggie Bain” are remarkable. They are poor, oppressed, often mean and often drunk. But somehow, despite their cruelties, they are sympathetic.
Shuggie himself is a “not right” child, an effeminate boy living with his alcoholic mother, mostly near some shut coal mines in Glasgow. The novel follows Shuggie from age five through about 16, as his mother Agnes—the center of the story—struggles with loneliness, frustration and anger. Agnes carries herself with a “posh” style that fits her beauty but not her means. Shuggie’s taxi-driving father is mostly absent, and the neighbors treat the family with contempt.
Douglas Stuart portrays all his characters with fine detail, total realism and a deep understanding. I always believed in the truth of the story.
The narrator was excellent, with the right emotion and variations of voice. My only hesitation was his Scottish dialect, which could be hard to understand. He repeatedly mentions “Wayans,” for example, which I finally realized meant “wee ones.” But you catch on.
Overall, this was a moving drama that held my interest throughout.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
58 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sharlotte
- 02-29-20
Rather Interesting, Very Unfortunate
and Deeply Profound
I would have enjoyed this even more if I had been able to understand it all. As it was, between the narrator's heavy accent and the dialect, there was a LOT I missed. In fact, I had to read the first two chapters over three times to get the hang of it and adjust my listening ear. A sad tale of alcoholism, family, sexuality, poverty, and shame. 4.75 Stars
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
49 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Grant
- 09-25-20
A masterpiece
The beautiful writing of this debut novel wraps tenderly the joyful protoganist, surrounded by so much dreadful sadness and despair. Few books I’ve read have moved me so greatly and challenged me so deeply on how I should be a father and husband. One of those that will live with you long long after you’ve finished it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
41 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Erna
- 10-02-20
Incredible performance
Beautifully read and a touching story that is so humane and delicate, never maudlin. Highly recommend.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
28 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Richard
- 12-13-20
Fantastic Listen
Who would have thought story of abuse, alcoholism, bullying and poverty could not to boring and depressing? Narration is fantastic. Best book I have read/listened to in years.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
26 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Robert D Hunter
- 11-11-20
A love story wrapped in tragedy and heart break.
The characters are so very real and live in such breathtaking circumstances. With all the pain Agnes causes and for all the damage that results her love for her son never wavers.
The descriptions of life on the edges of society are all to vivid and poignant.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
21 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Diane Q
- 10-19-20
One of the best
Everything about this audible selection hit the highest mark. A terrific story matched with a terrific narrator. This story will stay with me for a bit. Very well done!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
20 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- P. Bergh
- 12-08-20
A beautiful, sad but heartwarming story
Wow, I’d listen to this book just for the wonderful Scottish accents! But the story itself is just beautiful. If you liked Angela’s Ashes, but want something a bit warmer, this is a great choice.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
19 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Hamburgerpatty
- 02-27-20
Haud ma fur coat while I bash her ...
I finished listening to the US edition of Shuggie Bain just a few minutes ago. Perhaps it's too soon to write a review about such a vital, heartwrenching, brilliantly observed novel. I was blown away and I wanted share right away my enthusiam for such important work. I'm sure many UK critics will say it's Trainspotting for the Glaswegians. Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting is a work of genius, but Shuggie Bain has a different focus and the reader or listerner will learn different lessons from Shuggie Bain. I can not praise this novel enough.
The action takes place in the 1980s when Glasgow's (and environs) traditional industries of shipbuiling, mining and steel were being kicked into oblivion by Thatcher's government. How this decline impacts on the lives of men who were used to performing hard manual labour and being celebrated for it is one of the novel's main themes. The author contrasts the lives of those men used to using their fists freely, to always be seen to do manly things (eg support the Gers or not), to view gays as threat to their own sense of manhood - with those changes of the 1980s. Men's sense of their place in a post industrial world was being redefined. Many of the men in the novel were ad hoc taxi drivers, living on their on the wits, or drowning and not waving.
My jaw kept dropping scene after scene after scene which involved women. He drews scenes with such sensory clarity as a reader I was there. The creaky floorboards, the shuggly windows, the smell of stale lager, the feel of that cheap hairspray, the quality of a Templeton's carpet. Also the Freeman's catalogue parties, the makeup, the drink, the bras, the weans, the scene in the petrol station and the loaf of bread and the tale of the woman whose husband came back from service in World War II to find another man's baby in his flat, Douglas Stuart understands women. He understands their need to dress to impress even though they might only have a tin of beans at home and six empty lager cans at home.
And he understands that bit of the Glaswegian character - where - if they like you, they'll give you the shirt off their backs, but if they want your shirt, it might be a different story. Whether involving men, women, children - throughout the novel is an strong undercurrent of 'does your mother sew? well stitch this violence'. You don't know when the next phyical or verbal attack will happen. Few characters are spared. Not even children.
I have said little about the main character young Shuggie Bain who knows he is 'different', but other than verbal, sexual and physical abuse is giving little guidance on how to live his life a young gay boy in such dire circumstances.
I would urge anyone who wants to understand how families become and stay trapped in poverty, how life might be for a poor family to live with an alcoholic parent, how they then survive in urban jungle and the how 1980s impacted on the working and underclass in our industrial cities then listen to Shuggie Bain.
Shuggie Bain is an eye-opening and heart-opening novel. It's not for the faint hearted.
Thank you Mr Stuart. Orra best.
PS Well done on being Longlisted for the Booker Prize! Well deserved. Shuggie Bain is a stunning novel.
PSS Well done on being Shortlisted for the Booker Prize!!
PSSS Well done on being nominated for the National Book Award.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Robinson
- 01-10-21
Gritty and realistic
Excellent story of the life of the underclass in Glasgow in the late 80's...probably not that much different to now except there's more drugs.....desperately sad.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Mags
- 02-27-20
Loved this!
Shuggy Bain, sad but thought provoking. I worried and sympathised with this wee boy. Great book and well written. Loved the narration too!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Young Mungo
- By: Douglas Stuart
- Narrated by: Chris Reilly
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born under different stars—Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic—they should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all. Their environment is a hyper-masculine and sectarian one, for gangs of young men and the violence they might dole out dominate the Glaswegian estate where they live. And yet against all odds Mungo and James become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds.
-
-
Suffering Sappho!
- By Richard Stewart on 04-12-22
By: Douglas Stuart
-
How Beautiful We Were
- A Novel
- By: Imbolo Mbue
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Janina Edwards, Dion Graham, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are made - and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interests.
-
-
As relevant as it is heart-wrenching
- By Anonymous User on 10-18-21
By: Imbolo Mbue
-
Where We Come From
- A novel
- By: Oscar Cásares
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a distance, the towns along the US-Mexican border have dangerous reputations - on one side, drug cartels; on the other, zealous border patrol agents - and Brownsville is no different. But to 12-year-old Orly, it's simply where his godmother Nina lives - and where he is being forced to stay the summer after his mother's sudden death. For Nina, Brownsville is where she grew up, where she lost her first and only love, and where she stayed as her relatives moved away and her neighborhood deteriorated.
-
-
Fantastic Read
- By NSJ on 07-31-19
By: Oscar Cásares
-
Shuggie Bain (German edition)
- By: Douglas Stuart
- Narrated by: Mark Waschke
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shuggie ist anders, zart, fantasievoll und feminin, und das ausgerechnet in der Tristesse und Armut einer Arbeiterfamilie im Glasgow der 1980er-Jahre, mit einem Vater, der virile Potenz über alles stellt. Shuggies Herz gehört der Mutter, Agnes, die ihn versteht und der grauen Welt energisch ihre Schönheit entgegensetzt, Haltung mit makellosem Make-up, strahlend weißen Kunstzähnen und glamouröser Kleidung zeigt - und doch Trost immer mehr im Alkohol sucht.
By: Douglas Stuart
-
Detransition, Baby
- A Novel
- By: Torrey Peters
- Narrated by: Renata Friedman
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.
-
-
Emotional Torture
- By Teh Micha on 04-27-21
By: Torrey Peters
-
Lie with Me
- A Novel
- By: Philippe Besson, Molly Ringwald - translator
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.
-
-
Memoir or fiction, either way it's enthralling.
- By Keith G on 05-08-19
By: Philippe Besson, and others
-
Young Mungo
- By: Douglas Stuart
- Narrated by: Chris Reilly
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born under different stars—Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic—they should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all. Their environment is a hyper-masculine and sectarian one, for gangs of young men and the violence they might dole out dominate the Glaswegian estate where they live. And yet against all odds Mungo and James become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds.
-
-
Suffering Sappho!
- By Richard Stewart on 04-12-22
By: Douglas Stuart
-
How Beautiful We Were
- A Novel
- By: Imbolo Mbue
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Janina Edwards, Dion Graham, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are made - and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interests.
-
-
As relevant as it is heart-wrenching
- By Anonymous User on 10-18-21
By: Imbolo Mbue
-
Where We Come From
- A novel
- By: Oscar Cásares
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a distance, the towns along the US-Mexican border have dangerous reputations - on one side, drug cartels; on the other, zealous border patrol agents - and Brownsville is no different. But to 12-year-old Orly, it's simply where his godmother Nina lives - and where he is being forced to stay the summer after his mother's sudden death. For Nina, Brownsville is where she grew up, where she lost her first and only love, and where she stayed as her relatives moved away and her neighborhood deteriorated.
-
-
Fantastic Read
- By NSJ on 07-31-19
By: Oscar Cásares
-
Shuggie Bain (German edition)
- By: Douglas Stuart
- Narrated by: Mark Waschke
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shuggie ist anders, zart, fantasievoll und feminin, und das ausgerechnet in der Tristesse und Armut einer Arbeiterfamilie im Glasgow der 1980er-Jahre, mit einem Vater, der virile Potenz über alles stellt. Shuggies Herz gehört der Mutter, Agnes, die ihn versteht und der grauen Welt energisch ihre Schönheit entgegensetzt, Haltung mit makellosem Make-up, strahlend weißen Kunstzähnen und glamouröser Kleidung zeigt - und doch Trost immer mehr im Alkohol sucht.
By: Douglas Stuart
-
Detransition, Baby
- A Novel
- By: Torrey Peters
- Narrated by: Renata Friedman
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.
-
-
Emotional Torture
- By Teh Micha on 04-27-21
By: Torrey Peters
-
Lie with Me
- A Novel
- By: Philippe Besson, Molly Ringwald - translator
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.
-
-
Memoir or fiction, either way it's enthralling.
- By Keith G on 05-08-19
By: Philippe Besson, and others
-
The Sympathizer
- A Novel
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Francois Chau
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2016. It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong.
-
-
The Great Vietnamese Novel(Port)Nguyen's Complaint
- By Joe Kraus on 03-31-16
-
Booth
- By: Karen Joy Fowler
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1822, a secret family moves into a secret cabin some thirty miles northeast of Baltimore, to farm, to hide, and to bear ten children over the course of the next sixteen years. Junius Booth—breadwinner, celebrated Shakespearean actor, and master of the house in more ways than one—is at once a mesmerizing talent and a man of terrifying instability. One by one the children arrive, as year by year, the country draws frighteningly closer to the boiling point of secession and civil war.
-
-
Fascinating
- By E. Creagh on 06-20-22
By: Karen Joy Fowler
-
In the Valley
- Stories and a Novella Based on Serena
- By: Ron Rash
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall