Shuggie Bain

When Agnes Bain drinks, she sleeps deeply. Little Shaggy puts four mugs on her nightstand. Water—to calm the hangover. Milk—to soothe the stomach. The remnants of an exhausted stout—to relieve the tension in her bones. Tooth whitener—for fresh breath. He labels it just in case: “Don’t drink, DANGEROUS.” Shaggy is only eight, but he already understands: he really wants to help his mother and be like everyone else—a “normal boy.” And life, as if on purpose, is often unfair to the most sincere children’s dreams.

This heartbreaking story is about unconditional child love. And about addiction, about a country being eaten away by unemployment, and about how hard it is to become “your own” in a society from which you differ even by the smallest fraction.

Winner of the Booker Prize 2020. A novel of such devastating power, so piercing and true, that its painful honesty has won over thousands of readers. In the 90s, when Scotland is drowning in poverty and unemployment, Agnes Bain dreams of something more. She flips through fashionable catalogs, wears makeup “just because,” and thinks she’s too beautiful to work. And Agnes loves to drink. Lots of it. This story belongs to her son Shaggy—for whom, no matter what, Agnes remains the most important person in life. It’s a story about love—clear, unconditional, real—about addiction that destroys a family from the inside, and about a boy who desperately wanted to be just a normal kid. It’s a shame that the most sincere children’s dreams so often don’t come true.