Shuggie Bain

“As the women gabbed about the routine of their lives, she only listened to the noises beyond them and strained for any sounds of him in the room behind. now she wanted to tell the woman that she knew all about it. She knew about the sweaty taxi windows, his greedy hands, and how they must have panted at Shug to take them away from it all as he stuck his prick into them. it made her feel old and very alone. She wanted to tell them she understood. She knew all about its thrill because once upon a time it had been her.” 

Agnes Knows all too well about her husband's infidelity because she had been another one of his affairs, breaking up his previous marriage. Agnes saw in Shug a chance to start over and break the monotony of her life. As Shug begins to drift away, she feels more trapped than ever in her life. This quote reveals a catalyst for her alcoholism. 

“The auld Glasgow jakey was a dying breed—a traditionally benign soul that was devolving into something younger and far more sinister with the spread of drugs across the city.” 

This passage demonstrates both the Glasgow slang and the declining social situation that will consume Agnes’s life. “Jakey” is Glasgow slang for an alcoholic. While the “auld Glasgow jakey” was stereotypically a harmless old man—deindustrialization forced many younger men out of work and onto the dole (unemployment/government financial assistance), sparking a drastic increase in drug and alcohol abuse.

“The heads of the audience turned one to another in shock. It was like a dozen faces looking at their own likeness in the mirror. ‘Wid ye get a load o’ that. Liberace is moving in!’ screamed one of the women.” 

Pithead is even more conservative than Sighthill. Shuggie, with his prim and proper mannerisms he learned from Agnes, immediately sticks out in the low-class neighborhood. The women of the neighborhood make fun of him, calling him Liberace, turning the gay piano players name into an epithet. This quote addresses the question of Shuggie’s sexuality, which he will come to terms with later in the novel.

“She had loved him, and he needed to break her completely to leave her for good. Agnes Bain was too rare a thing to let someone else love. It wouldn't do to leave pieces of her for another man to collect and repair later.” 

Shug treats Agnes with a brazen cruelty that ultimately helps ruin her life. Rather than simply leaving his wife, Shug takes her to the desolate town of Pithead to keep her away from other men. His possessive attitude is linked to Agnes’s beauty; he believes if he cannot have Agnes, nobody can. 

“‘It’s quite easy. Ye should just get the fuck on with it.’ He slapped his hands and threw them open in a wide tah-dah gesture. ‘Get on wi’ yer fuckin’ life. Ah promise that nothing would piss the pig-faced baldy bastard off more. Guar-rant-teed.’” 

The taxi mechanic gives Agnes some sound advice: the best way to get back at Shug would be to get over him and live a normal life. It would foil his plan of breaking her spirit. However, the draw of self-pity and alcohol abuse proves to hold too much power over Agnes. 

“He felt something was wrong. Something in him felt put together incorrectly. It was like they could all see it, but he was the only one who could not say what it was. It was just different, and so it was just wrong.” 

From an early age, Shuggie realizes that there is something different about him from the other boys, mostly based on adults’ reactions to his behavior. He is not into sports or other masculine pursuits, and he affects the posh body language and speech patterns of Agnes—behaviors which his society deems unacceptable in a boy. This culminates in Shuggie developing identity issues that he carries for the duration of the novel. 

“There was the telephone and a taxi, there was the bingo and sitting alone. There was drink and drink and no win and drink and no win and the woman next to her asking if she was OK and Agnes asking her if she had any weans and the woman saying no and turning away. There was a taxi home, not with Shug, and stopping at the dark mouth of the closed pit. She could almost see the taxi driver’s face, and then she was screaming and choking on his aftershave, and then there was only panic.”

Agnes’s alcoholism put her in increasingly dangerous situations, evidenced in this scene, where a taxi driver rapes her while she is in a blackout. Agnes’s drinking is a pattern of self-harm that Shuggie consistently tries to protect her from. This quote reveals a pattern of use and abuse that Agnes suffers from taxi drivers.  

“I suppose. Sometimes before school I hide all the pills in the bathroom. I know my brother takes his razors to work every day.” He twisted his finger through a loop of pink carpet. “But most of the time I just worry she will make it worse for herself. She loses her pride. People don't really want to know her anymore. My sister lives with black people a million miles away because of her. My Big Brother is trying to save enough money to leave.” 

Annie is the first person to whom Shuggie can vent his worries. This passage reveals how he worries about Agnes. Above all, he is concerned that he is quickly becoming the only person Agnes has left, and he views it as his responsibility to ensure that she does not harm herself through her alcoholic habits.

“The boy looked down at the plate blankly. He worried he could hardly eat it, as his stomach was doing something that felt like the fear cramps. This time, instead of the choking sourness, something bubbled inside him like yellow sunshine. A smile broke inside him, and lifting his stocking feet, he rocked back on his tailbone and spun and spun and spun on his backside until the little tea table was shiny with delight.” 

Growing up in an abusive household with an alcoholic mother, Shuggie is not used to being taken care of. Coming home to his mother sober and being treated to tea and a treat is something that brings on an unfamiliar feeling: delight. His body is more accustomed to fear and anxiety. 

“‘Ego sum in flammis, tamen non adolebit,’ George said. ‘I am on fire. I do not burn. It is Saint Agnes’s lament.’” 

Joining Alcoholics Anonymous represents Agnes’s first serious step toward recovery. George, the group leader, links Agnes’s name to Saint Agnes. He demonstrates how Saint Agnes’s lament of being on fire but not burning is comparable to the various forms of metaphorical “burning” alcoholics like Agnes endure.

“Agnes wavered over the answer. Years of drink made you uncertain. Years of people asking Do you remember the night you did this? made you lose your own sense of truth. The things she had forgotten in blackouts could be small and insignificant, but they could also be epic and they could be wretched. The truth was she had not slept with Jamesy, not willingly anyway. He had conned his way inside her and then had welched on their deal. That made it something worse than sex. She did not know the name for it.” 

The fact that Eugene is Colleen’s brother immediately causes strain in their relationship. Agnes is haunted by rumors of her loose morals and alcohol abuse. While she did have sex with James (in return for him spending time with Shuggie, a promise he reneged on), he only led her on and used her for sex. 

“They danced on, and she tried to feel better. She tried to cut off her doubt on her shame and let her daydreams from earlier reignite. He could be the one to help dig her out of her emptiness, a friend, a lover, a father. She could keep him clean and fed; she would keep herself neat. He could give her money. They could have holidays. He would buy her messages in a big trolley from a big, name brand supermarket. She would love him. This was how her daydreams ran.” 

The potential of having a good man in her life is the opportunity to start over that Agnes has been waiting for. Eugene represents a masculine stability that she has long desired. To Agnes, Eugene represents the normal life that Shug denied her when he abandoned his family in Pithead.

“She was no use at maths homework, and some days you could starve rather than get a hot meal from her, but Shuggie looked at her now and understood that this was where she excelled. Every day with the makeup on in her hair done, she climbed out of her grave and held her head high. When she had disgraced herself with drink, she got up the next day, put on her best coat, and face the world. When her belly was empty and her weans were hungry, she did her hair and let the world think otherwise.” 

When Shuggie is mocked by the McAvennies for dancing, Agnes tells him to keep dancing: if he were to stop, that would mean his bullies won. Shuggie realizes that it is this staunch pride that has allowed Agnes to survive the trials of her life, both self-imposed, and caused by others. Agnes shows Shuggie the importance of not giving the world the satisfaction of knowing when he is beaten down. 

“Shuggie looked down at the book and flicked through the yellow newsprint pages full of old football scores. Scottish League Results. Gers won 22, drew 14, lost 8, 58 points total. Aberdeen won 17, drew 21, lost 6, 55 points total. Motherwell won 15, drew 12, lost 10. His face flushed with shame; Any feelings of superiority left him. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and he slipped it quickly into his pocket, like it was a dirty secret.” 

In the very first conversation Shuggie has with Eugene, Eugene tries to “correct” Shuggie's unmasculine behavior by encouraging him to play with other boys his age. He gives him a book of football statistics, which is something that Eugene believes normal boys should be interested in. Instead of exciting Shuggie, the book causes him to feel ashamed of himself for not being “normal.” 

“Was she broken and stuck, like them? In the mirror a facsimile of Elizabeth Taylor looked back at her, only now it was Liz, at the vain and haughty version from the paparazzi photos on the yacht in Puerto Vallarta. Her hair was still thick, her makeup still feline. But now the hair was too black, and the makeup was too heavy, the popular colors of a decade gone by. Even her eyelids were metallic green, like oxidized copper. She took out an old tortoiseshell pick home and fixed the curls in her hair, flattening them into wavy layers and making them smoother, less bouffant-like, less old-fashioned. She took an elastic band and pulled a mean ponytail onto the back, the first one she had ever worn. It lifted her face as she wiped heavy lipstick from her lips, the metallic gleam from her eyelids, and the pink Rouge from the burst red veins. Blank as a canvas now, she drew electric blue kohl under her eyes, the way she had seen the young girls on Top of the Pops wear it.”

Seeing the AA members outside of their usual context is a blow to Agnes’s pride. She tends to see herself as above everyone else, Eugene’s reaction to the other AA members makes her realize that she has become stuck in the era of her youth even as she ages. This helps fuel Agnes’s obsession with reinventing herself. 

“He was right: she didn't feel any different. Colleen was wrong. Agnes felt a wave of relief. She slowly finished the glass of wine, hoping what he said about her was true, feeling like she had beaten the AA and that she could be normal again.” 

It is with the best of intentions that Eugene encourages Agnes to break her spell of sobriety, causing her to relapse into a downward spiral of alcoholism. Eugene truly believes that Agnes is normal and that her addiction is something that he can help her through. However, Agnes knows different, and despite her own misgivings, she allows him to convince her. 

“‘She’s no gonnae get any better, son. Come away from there.’

Shuggie paused for a second, he looked over his narrow shoulder bone and shrugged. ‘But she might.’”

Shuggie holds onto the hope that Agnes will get over her addiction, despite Leek and Shug saying she will not. Shuggie is fiercely loyal to his mother, and he is the one male in her life who does not abandon her. Even though he knows deep down that she will likely never get over her alcoholism, the slim chance that she might keeps him going. 

“Don’t make the same mistake as me. She’s never going to get better. When the time is right you have to leave. The only thing you can save is yourself.” 

Leek held out for as long as he could in Agnes’s abusive household, coping by avoiding being home, sleeping as much as possible, or focusing on his artwork. However, when Agnes kicks him out of the house, it is the last straw for leak: he abandons all hope of Agnes recovering and severs their connection. He advises Shuggie that he should do the same, because he thinks Agnes will never get better.

“Was this to be the moment that would make him normal? All the practicing at walking, all the chasing of a bladder ball and learning outdated football scores: it was all for this.” 

Shaggy has practiced his whole life to try to appear straight to fit in, but it has not worked. Shuggie views the date that Keir organizes with Leanne and her friend as the final chance at being “normal.”

“He knew now that he couldn't keep his promise. He had lied to Agnes as she had lied to him about stopping the drink. She would never be able to get sober, and he sat in the cold with a lovely girl and knew he would never feel quite like a normal boy.” 

Leanne Is the first person to whom Shuggie admits that he is uncertain of his sexuality. While this should be liberating, he is conditioned to feel guilt for not being heterosexual because he has been teased for it his whole life. He compares this to Agnes lying to him about getting sober. While Shuggie thinks he was lying to Agnes, he was really lying to himself that he could be something that he is not. 

“There had been something else in the Christmas card; a page from a lined school jotter covered with a pencil drawing of a small boy. He was sat cross-legged at the foot of an unmade bed, his back to the artist so you could see the base of his bare spine where the top and bottom of his pajamas didn't quite meet. Whatever was holding the boy’s attention was nestled discreetly in the curved crook of his body. The boy was engrossed, his face in shadow, and he looked like he was playing with small toy horses that could have easily been wooden toys, military or Trojan. Shuggie knew what they really were, that they were the scented dolls, bright and cheerful and for little girls. They were the pretty ponies, and Leek had known. Leek had always known.” 

The drawing that Leek includes with the Christmas card he sends to Shuggie shows that he had always known of Shuggie’s homosexuality. Unlike other people, Leek does not judge Shuggie for it. Though he tried to help him act straight to fit in, Leek accepted his brother and never teased him for his interest in traditionally feminine toys.  

“She gurgled again, and her head fell backwards till it rested on the soft back of the chair. Agnes retched, and he watched the bile bubble over her naked gums and painted lips. Shuggie stood there and listened to her breathing. It grew heavier at first, thick and clogged. Her eyebrows knotted slightly as if she had heard some news that was unpleasant to her. Then her body shook, not hard, but like she was in the back of a taxi and they were bumping down the uneven Pit road again. He almost did something then, almost used his fingers to help, but then her breath hissed away slowly; It just faded, like it was walking away and leaving her. Her face changed then, the worry fell away, and at last she looked at peace, softly carried away, deep in the drink.” 

Agnes’s death scene represents the moment that Shuggie completely gives up on his mother. He loves her dearly, but he finally comes to the painful realization that Leek was right: Agnes would never get better. Though his hesitation leads to her death, Agnes’s spiraling behavior likely would have killed her at some point anyway. 

“He knew what she meant to do. If Agnes were alive, if he still had the chance, he would want the same thing for his mother. Still as he watched Leanne pick at her lips and worry, he could not help himself. ‘Leanne. Come on. If I was at this nonsense you would batter me for it. It's useless. I'm sorry, but it is.’” 

Shuggie finally has a friend in Leanne, the girl he met on the double date with Keir. Shuggie sees his own affection and worry for Agnes reflected in Leanne’s anxiety over her mother, Moira, an alcoholic now living on the street. He knows that he would have worried over Agnes just the same, but he knows that Moira, like Agnes, is beyond help and does not want his friend wasting her life caring for her.