Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

This was this month’s selection for our “Literary Lush” book club. One of the things I enjoy about this club is that I end up reading interesting books that I never would have discovered on my own. This book was one I would never have picked up for myself, but one of our members liked it and others by the same author.

 

Douglas Stuart grew up in poverty in Glasgow, Scotland, in a situation very much like that presented in the book. He managed to escape, studying textiles (since is teacher discouraged “someone with his background” from majoring in English Literature), and eventually worked in fashion design for a number of well-known brands. Writing came to him later. His debut, Shuggie Bain, came out in 2020, when he was in his mid-40s. Young Mungo is his second novel.

 

Both books have autobiographical elements to them. Stuart was raised by an alcoholic single mother after his dad abandoned the family. His mom died of alcoholism when he was 16, and he ended up in a boarding house before managing to enroll in college. Like Mungo in this book, he was the youngest of three children, and struggled to survive as a young gay boy in a deeply homophobic and violent culture. 

 

At the risk of spoilers, the basic plot of the book - which is told non-linearly, like most books these days - is that Mungo’s mother abandons the family to go shack up with a man who doesn’t know she has children. The family is held together by the daughter (the middle child) who is working and planning to go to college. Mungo meets and falls in love with James, a slightly older boy who keeps doves. The problem is - okay, ONE of many problems - is that James is Catholic, while Mungo’s older brother Hamish, is the leader of a Protestant street gang. 

 

When Mungo and James are found out, Hamish tries to kill James, and Mungo is sent off by his mother on a “camping and fishing” trip with two questionable characters she just met at the AA meeting. Unsurprisingly, they turn out to be convicted child molesters who rape Mungo. He has to figure out how to escape, and how to hope for a better future than the one he sees before him. 

 

And yes, the book is mostly as dark as that sounds. It has a lot of violence, some disgusting (although not graphic) sex, the rapes, an abortion, and a painful level of individual, family, and social dysfunction. There is some humor too, but it is rare. There is also a wonderfully tender account of the budding relationship between Mungo and James. It feels so real and awkward and innocent: young love between two sensitive and badly hurt boys, whose love isn’t merely frowned upon, but still criminalized in the UK at that time. 

 

I have to wonder how much of the book connects directly to Stuart’s experiences, and how much was on just the emotional level. If he went through everything Mungo does in the book, that’s pretty horrifying, and it is astonishing that he survived at all, let alone found a way to thrive. (Even before the books became popular, he had a great career, and a life with his husband in New York - not too shabby.) 

 

I particularly wanted to comment on one circumstance of the book. It is easy to be shocked and horrified by the way that Mungo’s mom turns him over to strangers to “make a man of him.” And sure, a little vetting might have been nice. But I was thinking a lot about this, because of people I knew years ago, and I’m not at all sure that Mo-Ma’s actions are that unusual. 

 

It is so easy to forget now that back in the 1980s and 1990s, LGBTQ people were viewed with suspicion by a majority of people both in the UK and in the US. Hell, Matthew Shepard was born the same year I was, and was beaten to death for his sexual orientation in 1998. That event shocked the nation, and I believe was a turning point for gay rights. Decent people realized that this was just plain wrong, and we could no longer look the other way and pretend we couldn’t see what was happening, the evil being perpetrated against people for the “crime” of being different. But again, 1998! 

 

So many gay kids of my age were sent to various, um, situations, to “make men out of them” or “make women out of them.” Far too many were sent to various “conversion therapy” programs, where they endured psychological and often physical torture. How was this different from what happens to Mungo? Those running the programs were total strangers too. 

 

And others had experiences like this. Desperate parents, worried that their kid was displaying a lack of gender conformity, are approached by the youth pastor, who offers to spend some one-on-one time helping the child “become a man.” Except that the pastor is a sexual predator. And yes, this happened to a number of people I know. 

 

My parents were, by the standards of the 1980s, more accepting of LGBTQ people than most. Which meant, in that context, that we could believe they were going to hell, but not extrapolate that to permission to harm them ourselves. So, I remember gay people within our range of experiences - neighbors, co-workers, and especially musical colleagues one we got involved in the LA classical music scene. 

 

One of the ways this manifested is in the belief that homosexuality or “gender confusion” was near-universally caused by sexual abuse. Of course a kid who was raped might not have healthy sexuality. The positive of this was that, while not particularly accurate, it at least was halfway there to the idea that sexuality and gender identity are not choices (which was the prevailing belief of the time, even in secular circles.) The downside, of course, was the false sense of security that if you just kept your kids protected enough, then they wouldn’t ever be gay, right? 

 

On a deeper level, which this book really illustrates, the idea is profoundly backwards. It isn’t that molestation turns straight kids gay. But what happened pretty often was that predators could detect the gay kids, just like they could detect the kids who were vulnerable to attention because of their abusive or neglectful families. They could tell which victims were likely to be unable to fight back, unwilling to fight back, and vulnerable for a variety of reasons. 

 

In the book, Mungo was in many ways the perfect victim. A parent that was blasted out of her mind a lot of the time. A subculture that considered homosexuality to be religiously unforgiveable and a betrayal of manhood. A sensitive and slight young boy who didn’t like fighting. And who was already deeply embarrassed about who he was. The perfect victim, who would stay silent. 

 

Except Mungo was a lot tougher than anyone - himself included - thought when his back was really against the wall. 

 

So, for all those parents from my past who may have blamed themselves for their kids’ orientation: that part wasn’t your fault. The part that was your fault was not unconditionally loving and accepting your kid for who he or she was. 

 

The book was well written, I thought. Stuart has a real talent for making everything feel real in this book. The family dynamics are complicated - even the most abusive and neglectful families tend to have some good times, some degree of love, and cannot fit in to the “evil” box the way we usually wish. Adams clearly can see from his own experiences that dysfunction rarely has a single cause - it is always complicated. At the root of so much that is wrong with his family is poverty. The loss of jobs during the Thatcher era was brutal on cities like Glasgow. But people couldn’t just leave. When you are poor, moving to a different country (particularly now) is not often possible. Without job retraining, all that may be available will be welfare benefits. All that may be available for entertainment and a sense of belonging is drinking and fighting. There is nothing unique here, although every impoverished city has its own flavor. Stuart brings all this to life. It is horrifying, but compelling. And he lived it. 

 

I also want to mention a humorous and superb scene. Mungo goes looking for his mom’s lover, who runs a pawn shop. Their meeting goes about how you would expect, if you thought about a painfully shy young boy, and the sort of person who has survived in the pawn world. More is unsaid than said, but they understand each other. Awkward as hell, of course, and not much of a resolution. But very realistic. Oh, and this bit, from Jocko, the pawn dealer:

 

“Did ye know there is a vogue to weapons? Like an actual fashion trend? Some of these fighters carry on like they were lassies buying dresses in Paris. ‘Oh naw, ah don’t want a bowie knife - every cunt already has a bowie knife. I want somethin’ mair elegant. Somethin’ that screams me.’”

 

Plenty of good lines, of course. Because Mungo is a stand-in for the author, and the book is from his perspective, Stuart gets to comment on his own life from a close distance. For example, Mungo is a disappointment to everyone in his family. But why?

 

Mungo had been working hard at seeing what people really meant. Mo-Maw and his sister, Jodie, were always nagging him about that. Apparently, there could be some distance between what a person was saying and what you should be seeing. Jodie said he was gullible. Mo-maw said she wished she had raised him to be cannier, less of anybody’s fool. It was a funny thing to be a disappointment because you were honest and assumed others might be too.

 

Life is really tough on good people, but particularly on the gentle souls. While not exactly always gentle myself, I did tend to assume honesty in others, which is why losing my religious tribe and my extended family, in significant part because they were not who their words claimed they were, was traumatic for me. I feel like I was a disappointment because I couldn’t understand and embrace the casual cruelty to those outside the tribe. I felt for Mungo in this regard. I get why he doesn’t want to be a part of the fights between the gangs, and why he just wants to experience his love without the hate that comes his way. 

 

There is plenty of alcohol in the book, for obvious reasons. Mo-Maw prefers Buckfast, a fortified wine with a ton of caffeine. So it makes her staggeringly drunk but also meth-level hyper. There is a whole social history here of Buckfast being scapegoated for social problems in Scotland, much like crack is here. It makes a nice distraction from the deeper social issues, and allows a subtle way to express racial or class prejudice by deflecting to a substance. 

 

Mungo’s one positive alcohol experience is with James and a bottle of Famous Grouse. Among other things, they do not get drunk, but savor both the drink and the time together. (So, I brought some to our book club.) The sexual predators, “St. Christopher” and “Gallowgate” - not their real names, but their AA aliases - drink cheap whisky and cheaper lager beer. I like Mungo’s thoughts about the beer:

 

He had seen the awful sadness it contained, just beneath the happy foam. 

 

Jodie is the only (barely) functional person in the family, and by the time the story opens, she has essentially lost any last vestige of love and respect for Mo-Maw. When she briefly returns, Jodie tells her off. 

 

“You can stay until after you’ve spoken to the council and then you need to leave. Ah’ll come to the snack bar every Friday and collect money for the bills. You only need to pay until Mungo has his sixteenth birthday. Then you’re free to destroy yourself however you like. Try and take the fast road.” 

 

A minor character in the book is the local gay man, who is ruthlessly bullied by the neighbor teens. He is sad in a lot of ways, not least of which is because his life is just caring for his mother. As we find out later, his love as a young man left for Australia, and he didn’t follow, but has regretted it all his life. In the vernacular of the time, of course, nobody said “gay.” This man is a “bachelor.” And a few other euphemisms. And Mo-Maw is determined that she won’t raise a “bachelor.” 

 

Also of cultural interest is the clash between the working-class boys of Glasgow, and the posh students who come to study at the university. Hamish has made a side hustle of selling them poor quality drugs. Stuart’s description of the students is pretty hilarious. Here is my favorite line. 

 

Yet to Hamish, the worst of them were not the English. The worst were the chinless lambswool milksops from the West End or Perth or Edinburgh. These Scots spoke the Queen’s English with a snooty clarity that would embarrass even Etonians. They knew more than one Rabbie Burns poem by heart, and actually enjoyed ceilidhs and bagpipes without taking the piss. 

 

Midway through the book, Jodie gets pregnant. By one of her teachers. Ick. Mungo is the only person she can tell. They end up discussing John Donne, and specifically “The Flea,” a delightful bit of naughtiness and double entendres. 

 

“I like that poem,” said Jodie, mostly to herself. She wiped her face and tried to smile. “The poet is trying to con a woman into sleeping with him. They should teach every girl that poem the minute we get a chest.” 

 

The solution Jodie proposes is that Mungo pummel her lower abdomen until she miscarries. It doesn’t work (and Jodie later gets an under-the-table abortion), but it damages Mungo. 

 

In the end, it didn’t work, but Jodie didn’t tell Mungo that. It was better they didn’t talk about it again. She had asked for violence out of a gentle soul and it made her feel like she had trampled a patch of fresh snow.

 

Mungo also is traumatized by the seeming need for everyone around him to hate those of other religions. He simply cannot understand what about them he was supposed to hate. He has a great point, and one that has become a major reason I have left organized religion altogether. I cannot figure out what there is for me to hate. 

 

The book ends on a somewhat hopeful note, with Mungo poised between two futures. He can either follow his brother, knock a girl up to prove his manhood, and become a gang fighter. Or, he can follow James out of town, and seek a life where people like him can be safe. He and James cannot openly say goodbye, but they make a subtle connection that lets us imagine that Mungo - like the author - finds a better life. 

 

I imagine that this book would be harrowing but all too familiar for those who grew up as queer kids in 1980s and 90s. For those of us who are cis-het and grew up middle class, it can serve as a window in to an existence whose brutality and danger we can only imagine. And, I hope, purpose to thwart the fundamentalist bigots who deeply wish to return to that time, and take their own frustrations out in violence against LGBTQ kids and teens. 

 

This book will not be for everyone, but I thought it was a good read, if brutal at times.