Shuggie Bain – The Million-Copy Bestseller & Winner of the Booker Prize

Our summary description

As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.

Set in a Glasgow hollowed out by the early 1980s, Shuggie Bain follows a family struggling to survive as work disappears and dignity becomes harder to hold onto. After being abandoned by her husband, Agnes Bain moves her children to a bleak former mining town, where isolation and disappointment take hold.

Agnes dreams of glamour and escape, but her dependence on drink tightens its grip. Her children attempt to steady the household, adapting to neglect and loss in different ways. Shuggie, the youngest, clings fiercely to the belief that love and effort might be enough to save his mother. He tries to mould himself into what the world expects, hoping that being good and ordinary will somehow change their fate.

Shuggie Bain is a deeply affecting novel about addiction, family loyalty and childhood resilience. Rooted in working class Scotland, it captures the tenderness and cruelty of love when hope refuses to disappear.