[ad_1]
When Douglas Stuart set out to write his story about the love between a son and his mother, he thought he was writing a historical novel that was based on his own “defining and stinging experience” growing up in Glasgow in the 1980s.
The result was slightly different than what Stuart initially expected. Against the backdrop of industrial decline, social decline, sectarianism, and ruthless poverty, Shuggie Bath, winner of this year’s Booker Prize for fiction, tells the story of a boy trying to make sense of an adult world in crisis and a doted mother locked in a ultimately fatal battle with addiction.
Yet while offering an unwavering perspective on how the post-war and Thatcher years unfolded in tenement houses and housing projects on the outskirts of Glasgow, Stuart feels the book is hauntingly current. “The most surprising thing is that it is not a historical novel. We are still a nation that is very divided between the people who have and the people who don’t, ”he said in a Zoom call from his home in New York.
If anything, he feels that the sense of a social contract still evident in the 1980s has further eroded. Recent pandemic-related disputes over free school meals and the scandal over the automatic correction of exams highlight the inequality that still dominates Britain, he adds. “Shuggie” – the boy’s nickname – “has come at the right time.”
Young children atop a City Hall flats in Glasgow in the 1980s © Homer Sykes / Alamy
Not that your hometown hasn’t moved at all. Glasgow, which is described in his novel as a place that has lost its sense of purpose, where the “muscle memory” of unemployed men still drives them to gravitate toward closed workplaces, has experienced “an astonishing renaissance.” The city has always been a place that produces “amazing” literature and art, a testament to the people who live there, he adds.
“The Scots are markedly stoic,” says Stuart, who regularly returns to Scotland (although the pandemic has halted these trips today). “They didn’t always let the world know how difficult times had been.” That was something he set out to address with Shuggie Bath, which in addition to being a very intimate family story, is also a celebration of a place where loss and pain are counteracted with love and humor.
It has been a long journey. His teachers rejected the childhood enthusiasm for literature and writing and recommended that he explore the most practical option of textile design. Only much later, after moving to New York, where he worked for various fashion companies, including Calvin Klein and Jack Spade, did Stuart sit down to write the story that would become Shuggie Bath. That was 12 years ago. The distance and “a lot of longing” gave him the clarity to revisit the reality of extreme poverty, the constant feeling of not fitting in, and the powerful and conflicting emotions of a dear but very imperfect father.
In his acceptance speech following the announcement of the Booker winner, Stuart said that he had made it clear “that my mother is on every page of this book.” With Agnes, the mother’s name in the book, Stuart says that he wanted to show the many parts of his character: mother, lover, daughter, friend, enemy, and not just the addict that she became.
However, while Shuggie Bath it draws heavily on her own story – “the queer son of a mother who lost her battle with addiction” – not a memory. “That was never an option,” he explains. Only fiction with its ability to “keep moving the lens” allowed him to realize his ambition to capture a wide and multifaceted world of the working class with dozens of characters.
It’s a world that, according to Stuart, has long been ignored by the literary establishment. “I had to become a man before I could find stories that were representative of myself,” he says. The books and curriculum he found in his youth came with “a very middle-class English voice.” His own book struggled to get noticed: 32 publishers rejected it before it was finally picked up.
Stuart says he is proud, “but also sad”, to be the second Scottish Booker winner in its 52-year history. When his Glasgow partner James Kelman won in 1994 with his novel How late was it, how late caused a scandal. A judge threatened to resign in protest while a critic dismissed a convict’s outpouring story delivered in the Glasgow dialect as “literary hooliganism.” Stuart says he sent a powerful message to those regionally or working-class writers already struggling to access the “inner sanctuary.”
Books of the year 2020
From ideas to rethink economics and politics to outright escapism, FT writers and critics choose their favorite titles from what has been a remarkable year for the books.
This year’s list of finalists has stood out for its novelty and diversity. Four of the final six, including Shuggie BathThey were debut novels; most were authors; and Stuart was the only British-born author for the prestigious award that is now open to anyone who writes in the English language. Stuart welcomes the variety on this short list, noting that in addition to gender and race diversity, it was also different in terms of class.
This year’s award evaluation was also much friendlier. The decision was made unanimously and swiftly, a marked difference from last year when the judges split and chose to break the rules and split the award between two authors, Bernardine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood.
Stuart says it’s still too early to know how Booker’s victory will affect him (he’s zooming in from the same couch from which he received the award 17 hours earlier), but says he hopes it will contribute to the publication’s opening. world to different experiences. “I hope that Shuggie will allow more working class writers to come to the table. “
