In his baggy shorts and his oversized cagoule, he looked like a waif dressed in hand-me-downs. He must have seen her face harden, or perhaps he thought waving was childish, because he aborted the gesture and grasped a fistful of air, which made him seem like a drowning man. Mungo raised his hand to wave up at the window but Mo-Maw glowered down at him. Mo-Maw licked the back of her bottom teeth. Their slitted eyes kept flicking towards him, watching, waiting to see what the boy would do next, while their hands ferreted inside their trouser pockets as they peeled their ball sacks from their thighs. The men were canny enough not to pressure Mungo, not so close to home, not when he could still bolt. Mo-Maw could tell they were itchy to be gone – these narrow streets didn't like unknown faces – and she could see it took patience not to goad her boy on. They shared a sigh and a glance and a chuckle, before putting down their bags and lighting cigarettes. Go! she mouthed again and took a swally of the cold tea. This was all for his own good and yet he dared stare up at her with a doleful look. He would do anything just to make other people feel better. As his mother watched him through the ear-of-wheat pattern of the net curtains, she tried to convince herself that his twitch was a happy wink, a lovely Morse code that telegraphed everything would be okay.

Turning back, Mungo squinted up at the tenement flat, and his eyes began to twitch with one of their nervous spasms. It was such an assertive gesture that it took everyone by surprise. Unable to accept her son's sexual orientation, Mungo's alcoholic mother sends him off on a fishing trip with two men from her AA meeting, who promise to make a man out of him.Īs they neared the corner, Mungo halted and shrugged the man's hand from his shoulder. The Booker Prize-winning author of 'Shuggie Bain,' Douglas Stuart, returns with his latest novel, 'Young Mungo,' about a 15-year-old boy falling in love for the first time in a violently homophobic community.

Douglas stuart young mungo