'I tried to turn something terrible into something beautiful.' Douglas Stuart wrote a gripping novel about his alcohol-addicted mother

Last year, he became the second Scotsman ever to win the prestigious Booker Prize, and that too with a debut novel. The unexpected success of Shuggie Bain has a bittersweet edge for Douglas Stuart (44). For the story of maverick Shuggie, who loses his hapless single mother Agnes to drink, is based on his own childhood.

Shuggie grows up in a working-class Glasgow suburb during the bleak 1980s. In this harsh environment, the precocious, sensitive, gay boy and his flamboyant but alcohol-addicted mother are deviant and lonely. Agnes does not overcome her misery and dies young.

The writer went through the same thing. After he was 16^e left on his own - his adult brother and sister had been out of the house for years - Douglas Stuart moved into a room and worked every night and weekend while finishing high school and then studying fashion. Fashion houses like Calvin Klein wanted the fashion designer, which is why the Scot has now lived in New York for 20 years. Ten years ago, he started writing Shuggie Bain, which he considers primarily a declaration of love to his mother.

 

Trauma

What drove you to bring up all those nasty things again?

'One of the best ways to deal with trauma is to reshape it, turn something terrible into something beautiful. That is what I have tried to do. Working-class men on the west coast of Scotland are not taught to express their feelings; we are expected to just move on. I was lucky enough to be able to write about everything that was dark and painful. That was healing.'

'There is a lot of sadness in the novel, but also a huge amount of love and even humour. Sometimes the writing brought me to tears, but I also often laughed at the characters. As a child, I had no control over my situation, I could only watch my mother lose her battle with addiction. As an adult fiction writer, I did have that control, and could make the characters do and say things that didn't happen in reality. That gave me strength.'

Did you feel the need to give the story a better ending?

'No, that would have affected the dignity of the characters and been condescending to the struggles so many people face every day. It is true that many people suffer from addiction and heal from it. But it is also true that some people lose that battle. My mother was certainly not the only one; I have seen it happen to more men and women. However painful, in the end it is more dignified to show the truth than to embellish it. I couldn't deny my characters that dignity.'

Addiction

You write with great compassion about an addicted woman - very different from the average view of an alcoholic.

'Yes, often addicted people are treated with quite a bit of anger, because we think they should be able to get over it, help themselves. We see it as a lack of willpower if they fail to do so. But it is not like that. So much is already known about what chemicals do in the brain, what socio-economic factors play a role in developing addiction. I see it as a disease.'

'I am not an expert in this area, just an expert by experience when it comes to losing the most important person in your life. That is why I write about it from a sense of love, from the desire to try to understand what is going on, without judging it. Because what does that achieve? I have tried to show all sides of such a situation with empathy, so that other people can understand what it is like to love someone struggling with addiction. We already have enough judgements about that in our society.'

It also damaged you. Were you never angry?

'Anger especially has Leek, Shuggie's brother. He sometimes rages because he knew his mother from before her addiction: her potential, her beauty and dreams. I didn't know any better; even in my earliest memories of my mother, alcohol plays a role. Only as an adult do you realise that your childhood should not have been like this. What I hope to show is that children are enormously resilient; they can handle so much more that you would think. They adapt and their hope and love are unconditional. So no, I was never angry. The loss was too great to be angry. I want to remember my mother with love. Enough has already been stolen from us, I don't want to rob myself of that too.'

Reflection

You called writing this novel healing. In what way?

'My childhood and young adulthood were all about survival. When I was orphaned at 16, I had to move on and build a future for myself - there was no time for reflection. It was only when I was in my 30s and started writing that it gave me space to think about it and all sorts of images came up. As the book matured, I matured as a man too. My understanding of the characters and their motivations grew. I was writing about a woman in her 40s, and as I turned 40 myself, I was better able to put myself in her situation.'

'I now understood that between the ages of 30 and 40, your life has taken shape and you oversee what you have achieved and would still like to achieve. Who do you want to be? I was fortunate to be a man, to be educated, to work in New York. That also made me realise what my mother lacked at my age: no education, no government support, no career or chance of it. At that time, women's lives were severely curtailed; they were expected to be wives and mothers, even if they longed for more.'

'All the old industries that Glasgow relied on - shipbuilding, steel, the coal mines - collapsed within a generation. Unemployment was 26 per cent. People were really struggling. This gave me understanding and respect for my mother's addiction. If the cards had been as shuffled for me as they were for her, I probably would have started drinking too. It gives you a chance to escape your situation for a while. If you have hope that it can change, you can work on it. But if the hope that things will ever get better is dashed, a drink can just become your best friend.'

How did Scottish readers react?

'The novel was very well received there and became a success, and I think that's because the working class has actually always been a bit excluded in literature. We were not often given the chance to tell our story. And on top of that, the perspective was almost always male. I think I am one of the first to portray a mother and her queer son took centre stage.'

'The novel is also about finding your place, belonging. Both Shuggie and Agnes are misfits. Agnes does not belong because she is glamorous, outspoken, unconventional. Everything an actress like Elizabeth Taylor was admired for, she is despised for. Shuggie does not belong because he is feminine, forward, sensitive. Thankfully that is different now, but in those days there were very rigid ideas about how men and women should be and behave.'

Visual world

Are there any similarities between your work as a fashion designer and writing?

'My ability to create a visual world has helped me bring a world to life on paper too. But otherwise they are two very different worlds. Fashion is about instinct, about collaboration, it is fast and expressive and designed not to hurt. Writing is the exact opposite and is about isolation, contemplation, reflection and a certain amount of permanence. I just sat down and didn't let go until it was exactly how I wanted it. I rewrote every sentence a hundred times. Because it was so important to me, I kept it all to myself. In those ten years, I only let my husband read it.'

Both professions are connected to your mother, aren't they?

'That's right, I only started to see that myself when I was asked about it. As a child, I was unimaginably lonely. My mother taught me few skills, but she did teach me to knit. In the fashion world, I was an expert when it came to knitted fashion. But even writing more or less started with my mother. As the child of someone struggling with addiction, you learn all kinds of tricks and ways to keep your parent away from drinking. I would often sit at her feet and she would dictate her memoirs to me. She always began her story with the same dedication: "For Elizabeth Taylor, who knows nothing about love." We never got very far - always the same two pages.'

'As a child, I dreamed of becoming a writer, but I grew up in a house without books and only came into contact with reading after my mother's death. Books opened my mind and my world, but by then it was too late to study English at an academic level. The fashion world gave me a wonderful career and life in New York, but writing has always remained my dream. That that dream has now come true is incredible.'

Shuggie Bain, New Amsterdam, €22.99