Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates

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When Mungo and Jodie go to her rescue by fabricating an excuse as to why she is needed in their flat, and Mungo innocently asks as to why she stays with the bastard, Mrs Campbell launches into a long diatribe justifying her husband’s appalling behaviour: “Ye’re too wee to know anything about men and their anger.” The man who had been lounging on the front bench rose. No one applauded, but a new force seemed to charge the room. Up in the gallery, where a few well-bred young ladies were allowed to observe proceedings as long as they stayed silent, crinolines rustled and stays creaked as they leaned forward to see better. Nods of agreement; he was preaching to the converted. Abolitionist sentiment ran high among the Cambridge undergraduates. One elephant in the room I want to get out of the way first: This is not ‘Shuggie Bain 2.0’, even though it features a similar setting and milieu. And an alcoholic mother called Mo-Maw. When Jodie asks her brother Mungo: “What on earth would you know about the ways of men, eh?”, what she should be warning him about are the ways (and wiles) of women. The writer of a successful first novel – and they don’t come much more successful than Douglas Stuart’s Booker-winning Shuggie Bain– has two choices when it comes to the follow-up. Either they seek to prove their range with something entirely different, or they capitalise on that early success, giving readers more of what pleased them first time around. Stuart has opted for the latter course: Young Mungo is set in the same world and at more-or-less the same time as Shuggie Bain. It turns around the same basic friction: a young man growing up in grinding poverty who, because of talent, temperament and sexuality, is particularly ill-suited to the hard-edged world of the Glasgow schemes.

Mungo Makes New Friends | Mantra Lingua UK Mungo Makes New Friends | Mantra Lingua UK

Beyond these sat the broken promises of Sighthill. The high-rise towers were only twenty years old and were already in a state of disrepair. They were the tallest buildings Mungo had ever seen. The tops of them disappeared into the dense clouds, like a stairway to somewhere above the endless rain, or like a strut trying to keep the ceiling of dark cumulus from collapsing and suffocating the entire city." Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates, where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation. The two young men stared at each other, both holding the poker. Mungo knew that what Fairchild said was true, but he could not bring himself to let go. He tried to twist the weapon from Fairchild’s grasp, heaving with all his might. Fairchild’s fingers flexed; he was not as strong as Mungo. His grip threatened to break. But he had an iron will and would not yield. We’ll look after ye, Mungo. Nae worries. We’ll have some laughs, and you can bring yer mammy some fresh fish”. I sobbed my way through Shuggie Bain and sobbed again as Young Mungo made its way towards an ending whose inevitability only serves to heighten its tragedy. If the first novel announced Stuart as a novelist of great promise, this confirms him as a prodigious talent.

Fifteen-year-old Mungo shows the kind of vulnerability that makes people want to cradle him — or crush him. He’s the tender Scottish hero of Douglas Stuart’s moving new novel, “Young Mungo.” It’s a tale of romantic and sexual awakening punctuated by horrific violence. Amid all its suffering, Mungo’s story makes two things strikingly clear: 1) Being named after the patron saint of Glasgow offers no protection, and 2) Stuart writes like an angel. I know in this House we are used to debating the fine points of law and politics. But this is not academic. The question of slavery speaks to a higher law. To keep innocent men and women in chains, to tear them from their homes and work them to death: this is a crime against God and all the laws of justice.’ In a Nutshell: Depending on what you like as a reader, you are either going to love this book or hate it. Very few will fall in the in-between range. Unfortunately for me, I hated it. The audiobook made matters worse. But she disappears for weeks at a time, leaving them with no food and bills piling up. She was in her mid-teens when she had her babies, and she wants to party and be young and single. There were cheers and approving applause. Up on the ladies’ balcony, more than one corset strained with admiration of Fairchild’s manly virtue.

Mungobooks - AbeBooks - Poole Mungobooks - AbeBooks - Poole

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. Mungo nodded, accepting the result with perfect equanimity. He shook hands with his team-mates, then took two glasses of wine and crossed the room to where Fairchild was talking with his friends. He pressed a drink into Fairchild’s hand.

Mungo with Kamishibai Storytelling Theatre and Story Props

But in a fiercely violent masculine and heterosexual working class world, one ironically made only the fiercer and more violent by the otherwise emasculating impact of the Thatcher-era cuts on the heavy industry that built the culture: Mungo’s even bigger struggle is to somehow conform to the conventions and expectations of others (not the least Ha-Ha), when he himself is sensitive, artistic, nervous (with a facial tic which may be Tourette’s and a number of other compulsive behaviours) and increasingly aware of his attraction to his own sex. In case anyone is wondering if “Young Mungo”, is as good as “Snuggie Bain”, by Scottish-American Douglas Stuart, the gifted 2020 Booker Prize winner - the answer is YES!!!! Some of the alcoholics were eager for the meeting to be over, others were worried about what would happen when it was”. I never read Shuggie Bain but saw it got lots of accolades. So, I was excited to listen to Stuart’s second book, Young Mungo. But I really struggled with it. It’s not a bad book. In fact, it’s incredibly well written. But it’s such a sad, deep, dark, ugly, depressing story, I had to force myself to keep with it at times. Having said that, the ‘two boys kissing’ cover does reflect two key kissing scenes that occur one after the other that are effectively mirror events. Still, I don’t think this cover is quite accurate in reflecting the tone of the novel. The ‘Mungo submerged’ cover is rather ambiguous and ominous, and it brilliantly reflects two key events involving water. This is the best cover of the two, in my opinion.