Shuggie Bain

Douglas Stuart · b. 1976 · Scotland

Why it matters

Shuggie, too gentle for his scheme, spends the 1980s tending his glamorous, alcoholic mother Agnes through Glasgow's post-industrial collapse. The 2020 Booker winner: addiction written from a loving child's eye level, tenderness refusing to look away.

At a glance

Glasgow dialect and unrelenting subject matter; the prose itself is clear and close.