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A review by elerireads
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
4.0
I am never taking book recommendations from my mother ever again. I was repeatedly assured that this would not be traumatic, no matter what the blurb made it look like. I got 20 pages in and woke up at 5am the next morning in a cold sweat after a Shuggie-inspired nightmare. It did not get better. I should have learnt my lesson when I was 10 and categorically told that The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas had a happy ending. Anyway this got me into a bit of a reading rut because it hurt so much to read that I had to save it for weekends when I could psych myself up for a short sharp burst of it and then distract myself with something afterwards. Today, it took my desperation to procrastinate from filling out a zillion hideous ethics approval application forms to get myself to finish the bastard.
Obviously, obviously though it was absolutely brilliant. All this time it’s taken me to get through it has given me a lot of opportunity to try and pin down exactly why it was so painful to read. My mum’s claim that it’s not traumatic is kind of hilarious because I reckon if someone asked me to write a list of things that immediately spring to mind as traumatic, pretty much every one of them would feature in this book. The whole bloody story is about childhood trauma. But honestly, whilst the poverty, addiction, rape, domestic violence, child abuse, grief, homophobia, etc. were all individually awful, I think it’s the constant sense of impending doom that really does it. Maybe claustrophobic is the word? The absolute heart of the book is the overwhelming, unconditional love that Shuggie has for his mum, and it’s so well written that you feel it in your gut – he convinces you to love her too. The characterisation is so wonderful, and her addiction so compassionately and yet unflinchingly bluntly portrayed that you really feel like you see (and love) the whole of Agnes as a human being, which is something addicts in books don’t often get. But you know right from the beginning that she’s going to die. So you just have to watch as Shuggie’s life, and more importantly his heart, is torn to shreds over and over, and you can’t even appreciate the good times, the year of sobriety, because you have to guard your heart against the end that you know is coming. It’s not just a book about the pain of watching someone you love suffer, it forces you to experience that dreadful powerlessness in every single page. I was so ridiculously happy when Leanne made an appearance and Shuggie actually got a friend, because it was basically the only true ray of hope in the entire thing.
By rights of course this should get five stars, but I reserve that for books that I loved and quite honestly I can hardly bear to look at this right now - I think I’ll resent it for quite a while for the misery it has put me through.
Obviously, obviously though it was absolutely brilliant. All this time it’s taken me to get through it has given me a lot of opportunity to try and pin down exactly why it was so painful to read. My mum’s claim that it’s not traumatic is kind of hilarious because I reckon if someone asked me to write a list of things that immediately spring to mind as traumatic, pretty much every one of them would feature in this book. The whole bloody story is about childhood trauma. But honestly, whilst the poverty, addiction, rape, domestic violence, child abuse, grief, homophobia, etc. were all individually awful, I think it’s the constant sense of impending doom that really does it. Maybe claustrophobic is the word? The absolute heart of the book is the overwhelming, unconditional love that Shuggie has for his mum, and it’s so well written that you feel it in your gut – he convinces you to love her too. The characterisation is so wonderful, and her addiction so compassionately and yet unflinchingly bluntly portrayed that you really feel like you see (and love) the whole of Agnes as a human being, which is something addicts in books don’t often get. But you know right from the beginning that she’s going to die. So you just have to watch as Shuggie’s life, and more importantly his heart, is torn to shreds over and over, and you can’t even appreciate the good times, the year of sobriety, because you have to guard your heart against the end that you know is coming. It’s not just a book about the pain of watching someone you love suffer, it forces you to experience that dreadful powerlessness in every single page. I was so ridiculously happy when Leanne made an appearance and Shuggie actually got a friend, because it was basically the only true ray of hope in the entire thing.
By rights of course this should get five stars, but I reserve that for books that I loved and quite honestly I can hardly bear to look at this right now - I think I’ll resent it for quite a while for the misery it has put me through.