Daniel Rey

A bitter sectarian divide: Young Mungo, by Douglas Stuart, reviewed

A frail Glaswegian teenager is torn between his Protestant family’s expectations of masculinity and his love for a pigeon-keeping Catholic boy

Douglas Stuart. [Alamy] 
issue 14 May 2022
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  • Young Mungo

    Douglas Stuart

    Picador, pp. 400, £16

Douglas Stuart has a rare gift. The Scottish writer, whose debut novel Shuggie Bain deservedly won the 2020 Booker Prize, creates vivid characters, settings and images without letting his literary skill get in the way of plot. His second novel, Young Mungo, has a similar feel and is in many ways a kind of sequel.

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