An Evening with Douglas Stuart

We're absolutely thrilled to announce that this coming May, we'll be hosting the launch of Douglas Stuart's new novel, John of John. We've been looking forward to this novel so much, as Douglas is a shop favourite. Our event is a full five days before the book is published, so grab your ticket now for early access to John of John!

One of the most enjoyable events we've ever hosted was for his previous novel, Young Mungo, and we've been eagerly anticipating his next book. He'll be in conversation with Nicola Sturgeon, and we can't think of a better way to enjoy a summer Saturday evening than by listening to them discuss this wonderful new novel.

Our team already loves John of John, the story of a young man's return home to the Isle of Harris after studying in Glasgow, exploring the complex emotions and dynamics that such a return can entail. This is a truly special novel, and it's a privilege to host the launch with one of our favourite writers. Join us on May 16th for what promises to be a really special evening.

About John of John:

Everything he owned fit into a backpack and one doubled bin bag. It had taken him less than ten minutes to pack up four years of his life. It had taken a little longer to fold himself away, to hide all the bits of himself that had slowly been unfurling since he had arrived on the mainland. In truth, he had not changed that much since he had been at college, and as he roamed the ferry he wondered if he had always known he would be forced to come home eventually.

Out of money and with little to show for his art school years on the mainland, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry home, called back by his father to the island of Harris. In the windswept croft in which he grew up, Cal reluctantly resumes his old life, caught between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, weaver, and pillar of the 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 island’s hillsides, back in a tight-knit Hebridean community where talk is both social currency and a tool for control, and where a rigid adherence to Presbyterian faith clashes with the unspoken desires of its inhabitants, John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and seeming unwillingness to be Saved. As the seasons pass, everything is poised to change as the threads holding the community together become increasingly entangled,

In a narrative both tender and unflinching, Douglas Stuart continues and deepens his exploration of masculinity and the silent struggle of lives lived under a watchful, judgmental eye. John of John examines the weight of family expectation, the painful compromises people make for love, the lies they tell themselves and one another in order to survive, and the profound cost of a life unlived. It confirms Douglas Stuart’s reputation as one of the most vital voices in contemporary fiction.