John of John

Douglas Stuart (author)

Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry home to the island of Harris to find that not much has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal resumes his old life, caught between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella, who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for decades.

While Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As the seasons pass, everything is poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly entangled.

Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American writer. He is the author of two novels, Young Mungo, and, Shuggie Bain.

His debut novel, Shuggie Bain, won the 2020 Booker Prize. It was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. It won the Book of The Year at the British Book Awards and The Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. It was also a finalist for the Rathbones Folio Prize, The Kirkus Prize, The Orwell Prize, The Pen Hemingway Award, The McKitterick Prize and was a finalist for The Center for Fiction First novel prize.

Young Mungo was a Sunday Times #1 Bestseller. His work has been translated into 39 languages.

His short stories, Found Wanting, and, The Englishman, were published in The New Yorker magazine. His essays on gender, anxiety, and poverty can be found on Lit Hub.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he is a graduate of The Royal College of Art, and since 2000 he has lived and worked in New York City. Prior to being published, he worked for over twenty years as a fashion designer.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ 2026
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
• ISBN ‏ : ‎ 9781035086955