A review by shirecrow
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

5.0

“The sun was not yet fully overhead in the sky, and everything beautiful was all already ruined.“

People weren’t lying when they said that Douglas Stuart knows how to blow punches and leave you with an unrecoverable ache for comfort.

Young Mungo is a story about suffering, violence and hope. About love, family and their possibility of danger and manipulation. Mungo is a boy growing up in Glasgow with his sister that resents him for his undying love their drunk, useless mother but still loves him like her own. His brother a violent reflection of their absent father, forcing Mungo to choose between hurting others or getting hurt himself. Despite his problematic family situation he is still a loving, innocent and pure individual that wants everyone else to be happy before him.

I think the best you can do is to go into this completely blind. The only thing I knew about this was that it’s going to be sad.

Lord, was it sad. The portrayal of growing up gay in such a violent, hateful time was incredibly devastating. The tone, the highs during soft moments shared in isolation, the lows in the wild. All of this woven together in such an incredibly way that you can’t help yourself but hurt as if it’s your own son suffering in that moment.

I had to put down the book multiple times and just stare at the wall, I was so devastated. I’m literally tearing up just thinking about this story right now.

Young Mungo is raw beyond believe. It’s raw and brutal and so real because it’s not made up. There have been hundreds of Mungos in this world. If this book leaves you with nothing, if this doesn’t provoke you, then I don’t know what will.

Stuart’s writing style is superb. The structure not only of the story but of some sentences is gorgeous.
He writes the most heartbreaking and deep reaching meanings into a simple sentence. Something that a normal person could say on the street without thinking about it. I think that’s the beauty in his story, the simplicity and humanity. No need for flowery prose when you can just say it in a way that everyone can recognize from their own life.

“For all the gentle sons of Glasgow” is the dedication. I think it’s very fitting. Even when the story is about how gentleness and care are punished, at your core you’re still full of gentleness and love. It’s something that other people can bury or diminish for you but it’s never going to be gone entirely. There’s still love in all of us, no matter how much we might suffer at the hands of others. So many decades of hate, assaults and murder of queer people but we’re still here, fighting to love and be gentle with each other. Isn’t that proof enough? 

Read this. If you need it, read the trigger warnings beforehand. I advise it even though I’m not someone that really cares about triggers, this had even me short of breath.

“He hadn’t known that the sky could hold so many hues – or he hadn’t paid it ans mind before. Did anyone in Glasgow look up?”