Which kind of novel is more likely to linger with you - one that takes residence in your heart or one that provokes or even unsettles your mind? In your view, which author has ever found the sweet spot in the middle of that continuum with a novel that engaged your heart while also challenging your head?
Before finishing Young Mungo (2022), I knew Douglas Stuart's heartfelt novel was going to stay with me for a long time. Stuart creates rich and believable characters, uses a straightforward chronology delivered in an inventive fashion, and drops glimmers of hope into his frequently bleak story set in gritty Glasgow.
When the stunning surprise on the penultimate page of Young Mungo knocked the wind out of me, I was instantly reminded of the first time I finished The Sense of an Ending (2011) by Julian Barnes. Aside from the shocking but wholly plausible endings in both books, they share little else. And yet Barnes's book has now haunted me for over eleven years, as I'm sure will be the case with Young Mungo.
The Sense of an Ending is a remorseful meditation on the arrogance of youth and a melancholy treatise on the faultiness of memory. Welcoming Tony Webster, the first-person narrator of Barnes's novel, into your heart is thankless work. But Tony - and the novel, which I've now read three times - will simply not leave me alone. Both have lingered in my mind longer than any fictional character or novel I've encountered in over a decade. I suspect the eponymous Young Mungo - and the novel - may end up taking residence in my heart for nearly as long. Check in with me in 2032. In the meanwhile, I'm on the lookout for an author who has found the sweet spot on that continuum. If you've located one, please share the name of that author and his/her novel with me and others.
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