Shuggie Bain, The Truth - Emma Owen

Shuggie Bain The Truth

As hard as it is, I must break it to you… not every book is a happy one. Not every book results in a satisfying ending, where hope becomes the trajectory and good confronts evil. Sorry to break it to you, but this is not a Jane Austen novel! Love is not the winner, overcoming social statuses and pride. If anything, it’s the pit in your stomach, the dirt in your nails, the exhaustion of your existence. Here, the author, Douglas Stuart, explores the pain and suffering of the protagonist Hugh ‘Shuggie’ Bain as he endures the hardships of life growing up in Glasgow during the 1980’s. Stuart shuns from the glossy sheen that may cover the imperfect ways of society, forcing us to see the corruption.

Within this novel, it’s important to consider the novelties of life, the system of society and the harsh reality that Stuart captures of Shuggie. Whilst pioneering through the truths of Glaswegian living in the 1980’s, Stuart comprises his piece full of the pessimistic ways and the bleak standard of living. Stuart’s Marxist perspective of Glaswegian society achieves the balance of class and status, the large divide of wealth and poverty and the stakeholders and

by Emma Owen capitalists against the exploited labourers. The devastating dysfunction of society embeds the collapsing of industry, the rising of unemployment and poverty, the choices that face grim and difficult pathways and Shuggie’s naivety to his own identity. Additionally, the most severe difficulties that are suffered in this relentless novel are alcoholism, abandonment, and co-dependency. Having the most defiant and emotional wreckage upon the damaging destruction of family. We have all grown up, aspiring and idolising the strong connection between parent-child relationships, from the Weasley family in the ‘Harry Potter’ series to Atticus Finch in ‘To kill a Mockingbird’, yet in this novel, Stuart subverts away from typical lovey-dovey and loyal family relationships which are seen as an escapism from the battles of reality, to being one of the main battles in the first place. Stuart instantly captivates us in the first chapter of the alone sixteen-year-old Shuggie steering his own life in a single room, haunted by the other occupants of the house. Struggling for money, begging for jobs, and rationing his supplies- his life urges us to think how did Shuggie end up here? And who is looking out for him?

Glasgow, Scotland, 1980. Photographs by Mr Raymond Depardon/Magnum Photos

In context to today’s modern society, it is inevitable not to think about the whereabouts of Shuggie’s parents. Nowadays, children solely rely on their parents; financially due to the rising economic crisis our nation faces, through the basic struggles of life and the support that only a parent-child relationship prevails. Here in this novel, the ideologies of parents supporting children are seen as a fantasy for ‘Shuggie’ and his two older siblings (Alexander and Catherine).

Alexander (referred to as ‘Leek’) and Catherine survive the early trauma from Agnes (their mum) kidnapping them in the night, away from their committed biological father to live with her newly found boyfriend- Big Shug. By growing up in a domestically abusive household, Leek continuously deflected the idea of staying at home, wanting to escape the harrowing lifestyle his mother convicted to him. Like a prison-cell, Leek is constantly referred to as feeling guilty and reserved due to his constant dismissal to opportunities in order to help save his mum, such as a full scholarship to an arts school, as he feels trapped to uptake the fatherly duties that Big Shug couldn’t commit to.

Catherine on the other hand, after years of instigating the motherly role to protect the youngest child ‘Shuggie’ from the monstrosities of reality, has led a different approach to the suffering caused by Agnes, escaping at the first possible chance to South Africa. Newlywed and ready to abandon the memories of her past life.

To understand the privations that Shuggie withstands, it is apparent to develop a sense of understanding towards his childhood. To sustain an ounce of acknowledgement of the trauma the boy has faced, the questioning of the parental guidance he so yearned for must be addressed. Exposed to several suicide attempts of his mother’s, the knowing that his mother’s mug didn’t contain coffee yet the translucent state of vodka and the prevailing hopes gained and lost from constant relapses- Shuggie is oppressed of his childhood. After being discarded by his father and eventually, his older brother, his guidance relied on the transient state of his mother, however, the metamorphosis of fate came to an untimely demise as the sixteen-year-old boy loses her.

Concluding to the harsh narratives that this novel endures, Stuart exposes us to the realm of reality. No tinted cover to hide the subjugation of Glaswegian 1980’s, just the raw and desolate life of a boy, psychologically created by abandonment, alcoholism, exploitation, and exposure to the hamartia’s of society. Yet in my opinion, it formidably prevails the strength of love and the victims held against it.