Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates

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Set in the autumnal Highlands of Scotland, Mungo is a horse who has seen better days. Now, old and lonely, he has nothing to look forward to. But, slowly, he is introduced to a series of new friends who share his meals. As the seasons change, and winter comes, Mungo is taken away to his winter stables and his loyal friends must work out how to stay with him. Find yourself in Jill Newton’s beautifully illustrated Scottish Highlands, and join Mungo and his friends on their adventure. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, after receiving his MA from the Royal College of Art in London, he has lived and worked in New York City. And what use is freedom, if it is only the freedom to live in a slum until you are worked to death? What use is a wage if it does not buy you enough to eat? The only thing that money buys is ease for the consciences of the mill owners. Whereas at Windemere, every one of our people enjoys three square meals a day, a roof over his head and clean clothes to wear. He never has to worry if he will eat, or who will take care of his family. I promise you, if any English loom worker or coal miner glimpsed life on the plantation, he would swap his life for that in a second.’ Camilla, trapped in New Orleans and powerless to her position as a kept slave and Chester's brutish behaviour, must learn to do whatever it takes to survive.

Book review: Young Mungo, by Douglas Stuart - The Scotsman Book review: Young Mungo, by Douglas Stuart - The Scotsman

Both books feature domestic abuse, rape, sexual abuse of minors by those in a position of authority over them - although here (and I think largely reflecting the older age of the point of view character) these are more explicit/graphic. I for one would love for Stuart to complete a trilogy of Glasgow novels. ‘Old Mungo’ would be as satisfying a title as any for the third, because one thing that fascinates me about the world of extreme poverty, deprivation, and violence depicted so powerfully here is what modern Glasgow looks like beneath the scars of her brutal past. What is this city and its people like today? What remains of the tenements? Is it haunted by the blood and violence that stalked its streets and took place behind closed doors? I haven’t yet read Stuart’s Booker prize winning novel Shuggie Bain, but this appears to be set in a similar setting with similar themes of post-Thatcher poverty in 1990s Glasgow, single families, alcoholism and violence. The focus of this novel is the adolescent Mungo rather than the younger Shuggie and his mother Agnes. The writing is evocative and liberally sprinkled with colourful similes and descriptions and the authentic dialogue very much captures the mood of the time. The main characters are so well drawn we would recognise them in an instant and even the minor characters have an authentic individuality about them. In many ways this is a hard book to read and review, as what happens to young Mungo is painful and depressing. The ending is particularly dark and disturbing and left me feeling sad, but really hoping that there will be some light in both Mungo’s and James’ futures after all they have endured and lost. What really surprised me about the novel – and puts it in a different class than ‘Shuggie Bain’ altogether – is how bleak it is. If you thought the author’s Booker-winning debut was dark, you ain’t experienced nothing yet. I honestly think no publisher would have touched this with a barge pole if it had not been for Stuart’s commercial and critical success to date.

Mungo tipped his hat and turned away – as if completely oblivious to the armed men behind him. Manners stared after him for a moment, stupefied by his opponent’s insouciance. Then anger took over. Snarling like a dog, he charged.

Mungo by Douglas Stuart | Goodreads Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart | Goodreads

It is harsh, ugly, and frightening, and it comes from events so hideous that I was sure I would lose my rag and start screaming incoherently at the Kindle. And it was, in this reader's angry, bitter judgment, the only and the best way he could have behaved. It was a boy, cooked in a bath of rage, becoming the only man that bath dissolved the fatty, weakening childness off of him to be. She had asked for violence out of a gentle soul and it made her feel like she had trampled a patch of fresh snow." Though not all of them. As the applause rose, so too did an answering barrage of boos and catcalls. Yells of ‘murderer’ and ‘blood on your hands’ were heard. You have heard a great deal this evening about the supposed evils of slavery. But has anyone here ever been to the great tobacco plantations of Virginia, or the cotton fields of the Mississippi? And the next minute we are on a dangerous fishing trip where Mungo meets James, a Catholic, a little older, a pigeon fancier.The English government had been frustrated with the growing power of the trade unions, tired of subsidizing Scotland to compete with cheaper foreign labour. He had said that it was catastrophic to put several generations of the same families out of work: men who had been bred to shape steel would be left to rust, whole communities that grew up around shipbuilding would have no paying jobs.”

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart review – grit and longing in

If you were a gentleman, I would gladly accept. But as that is clearly not the case, I will bid you goodnight.’ Then why have I heard of it from five different people?’ Manners took a step closer. ‘They say you had her in the organ loft of Trinity chapel, while the choir were rehearsing.’ Okay, maybe my expectations were too high after Shuggie Bain, but while Stuart still excells at atmospheric writing and nuanced dialogue, the plot is frustratingly predictable and the main character is simply another version of Shuggie, but a bit older, so the aspect of him realizing that he is gay becomes central to the story. Mungo grows up in 1990's Glasgow, the youngest of three siblings with a neglectful, alcoholic single mother whom he feels responsible for. His older brother is a violent criminal, his sister has an affair with a teacher (the outcome of which is exactly what you would expect). Around the siblings, the city and its working class population are still struggling due to de-industrialization, poverty, and hopelessness. When 15-year-old Mungo, a Protestant, falls in love with James, a Catholic, what happens is what you would expect. When his mother sends Mungo to a fishing trip with two pals from the AA so Mungo would man up, what happens is exactly what you would expect (this is no spoiler, this episode starts right at the beginning of the book and is then sprinkled within the chronologically told story of what happened before).

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Filled with heavy issues - dark as dark ever was - this novel is incredibly seductive…..encompassed by the mastery-passionate-storytelling. Young Mungo is a heartbreaking tale and tender love story of a sensitive teenager, brutalised by his origins and the society he lives in. Fifteen year old Mungo lives in poverty in a Glasgow housing scheme with his single mum and older sister Jodie. His father was killed on the streets in the ongoing violent and senseless warfare between protestant and catholic gangs. His mother was only a teenager herself when her first child, Mungo’s older brother Hamish was born, and unable to cope on her own with three youngsters took to the bottle to numb her pain. Never a good mother, she neglects Jodie and Mungo, leaving them alone for weeks at a time with no food in the house while she spends any money she has on alcohol and pursues her latest love interest. Despite all this Mungo loves her dearly, even though the more pragmatic Jodie tells him he should see her for what she is. Douglas Stuart opens our eyes, minds, and hearts to fear, love, family brokenness, manliness, manhood, masculinity, (gut wrenching examination from every angle) > fragile, rugged, confidence, power, force, muscled, typical traits, ‘Boys Will Be Boys’……a deep look at the traditional and negative effects. When I read Shuggie Bain I at least thought that there was an attempt at something in the storytelling... They waited, calling encouragement to each other. None of them wanted to suffer the same fate as Manners, but they did not want to look weak. At last the one with the poker stepped forward.