A heart-wrenchingly moving first novel set in Glasgow during the Thatcher years, &i>Shuggie Bain&/i> tells the story of a boys doomed attempt to save his proud, alcoholic mother from her addiction.

'Beautiful and bleak but with enough warmth and optimism to carry the reader through.' Graham Norton (on Twitter)

'A debut novel that reads like a masterpiece, Shuggie Bain gives voice to the kind of helpless, hopeless love that children can feel toward broken parents.' Washington Post

'[Shuggie Bain] would be just about unbearable were it not for the author's astonishing capacity for love . . . The book leaves us gutted and marveling: Life may be short, but it takes forever.' New York Times

'A boy's heartbreaking love for his mother . . . as intense and excruciating to read as any novel I have ever held in my hand . . . brilliantly written.' Newsday

'A formidable story, lyrically told, about intimacy, family, and love.' ELLE (US)

Shuggie Bain is an intimate and frighteningly acute exploration of a mother-son relationship and a masterful portrait of alcoholism in Scottish working class life, rendered with old-school lyrical realism . . . I kept being reminded of Joyce's Dubliners.