Winner of the 2020 Booker Prize. A novel of such devastating power, so piercing and real, that its painful honesty won over thousands of readers. Agnes Bain, once she drinks, sleeps soundly. Little Shaggy places four mugs on her nightstand—water to calm the hangover; milk to soothe the stomach; the remains of a spent stout to relieve tension in the bones; a toothpaste to freshen breath. He signs it anyway, just in case: “Don’t drink, DANGEROUS.” Shaggy is only eight, but he already understands: he desperately wants to help his mother and be like everyone else—a “normal boy.” And life, as if named, is often unfair to the most sincere children’s dreams. This heartbreaking story is about unconditional childhood love. It’s also about addiction, about a country corroded by unemployment, and how hard it is to become “one’s own” in a society from which you differ even by a tiny fraction.