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John of John
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From the Booker-winning author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo comes a vivid, moving, and beautifully crafted novel following a young man returning to his Hebridean island home, a portrait of a close-knit community and a fraying family, of a father’s expectations and a son’s desires
Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the island of Harris to find that little has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal begrudgingly resumes his old life, stuck between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, tweed weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his maternal grandmother Ella, a profanity-loving Glaswegian who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for several decades. Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, while John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As lambing season turns to shearing season, everything seems poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly knotted.
John of John is a singular novel about duty and patience and the transformative power of the truth. It is a magnificent literary work that shows Douglas Stuart working at an even higher level of artistic creation.
Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the island of Harris to find that little has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal begrudgingly resumes his old life, stuck between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, tweed weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his maternal grandmother Ella, a profanity-loving Glaswegian who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for several decades. Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, while John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As lambing season turns to shearing season, everything seems poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly knotted.
John of John is a singular novel about duty and patience and the transformative power of the truth. It is a magnificent literary work that shows Douglas Stuart working at an even higher level of artistic creation.
416 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication May 5, 2026
15875 people want to read
About the author
Douglas Stuart
13 books5,296 followersDouglas Stuart is a NY Times bestselling author. His latest novel, John of John, will publish in May 2026.
His work has been translated into over 40 languages. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain, is the winner of the 2020 Booker Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award. His second novel, Young Mungo, was a #1 Sunday Times Bestseller. His short stories have been published by The New Yorker.
Born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, after receiving his MA from the Royal College of Art in London, he has lived and worked in New York City.
Follow him on instagram at Douglas_Stuart
His work has been translated into over 40 languages. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain, is the winner of the 2020 Booker Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award. His second novel, Young Mungo, was a #1 Sunday Times Bestseller. His short stories have been published by The New Yorker.
Born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, after receiving his MA from the Royal College of Art in London, he has lived and worked in New York City.
Follow him on instagram at Douglas_Stuart
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
December 26, 2025
Gritty and dark but also immersive and gorgeous. That’s how I described Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo. After reading those, I found myself wishing he’d write something a little less disturbing. John of John is that book. It’s more gloomy and gray than gritty and dark, with touches of humor woven through. What remains is the fantastic writing and the way Douglas Stuart pulls me into his worlds. John of John is just as stunning and evocative as its predecessors.
Set on a Scottish island, John of John follows a father and son who couldn’t be more different: the Calvinist father, John, devout, divorced and desperate to keep everything the same, and the gay son, John-Calum, who wants to be himself but feels stuck after finishing college. And yet, beneath the surface, the two are so alike it’s almost unsettling.
Shuggie Bain was a little kid at the start; Mungo was fifteen; and John-Calum (Cal to everyone) is twenty-two when he returns to the island. But all of them long for the same thing: parental approval.
John of John is a quiet story. Not much seems to happen, and yet this family, this community, these people get under your skin. As a reader, you want to peel back layer after layer. The men work hard, but the women might be the ones who are the strongest, the smartest: Ella, Cal’s grandmother; Grace, his mother; and Isla, the girl he’s expected to end up with.
This is a story about guilt and regret:
“Am I to live my life watching everyone else do the living?”
About hiding:
”I’d like to sit in a pub as the rain comes down and talk to you without worrying someone might know us.”
About want:
”I have to have something to show at the end of this life.”
About the wish to love and be loved:
All I want from this world is someone to love.”
The last part of the story made tears sprang to my eyes again and again. I wanted to shake these men and hold them in my arms at the same time.
Douglas Stuart is an incredible author, and I’ll read anything he writes. I’d love to meet his characters again later in life, even though I know that probably won’t happen. More than anything, I just want all of these fantastic characters to find some happiness.
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Set on a Scottish island, John of John follows a father and son who couldn’t be more different: the Calvinist father, John, devout, divorced and desperate to keep everything the same, and the gay son, John-Calum, who wants to be himself but feels stuck after finishing college. And yet, beneath the surface, the two are so alike it’s almost unsettling.
Shuggie Bain was a little kid at the start; Mungo was fifteen; and John-Calum (Cal to everyone) is twenty-two when he returns to the island. But all of them long for the same thing: parental approval.
John of John is a quiet story. Not much seems to happen, and yet this family, this community, these people get under your skin. As a reader, you want to peel back layer after layer. The men work hard, but the women might be the ones who are the strongest, the smartest: Ella, Cal’s grandmother; Grace, his mother; and Isla, the girl he’s expected to end up with.
This is a story about guilt and regret:
“Am I to live my life watching everyone else do the living?”
About hiding:
”I’d like to sit in a pub as the rain comes down and talk to you without worrying someone might know us.”
About want:
”I have to have something to show at the end of this life.”
About the wish to love and be loved:
All I want from this world is someone to love.”
The last part of the story made tears sprang to my eyes again and again. I wanted to shake these men and hold them in my arms at the same time.
Douglas Stuart is an incredible author, and I’ll read anything he writes. I’d love to meet his characters again later in life, even though I know that probably won’t happen. More than anything, I just want all of these fantastic characters to find some happiness.
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November 30, 2025
Even as I was ecstatic to have the privilege of reading Stuart's third novel a full six months prior to publication, I also had a touch of trepidation. After two such astonishingly assured works as the Booker-winning Shuggie Bain and the equally enthralling Young Mungo, (both of which topped my list of the year's best books in their respective years) what if his luck ran out and the new novel - shudder - was a dud?
Well, I am happy to report my fears were for naught, as John of John: A Novel is not only the equal of its predecessors but I think, if anything, is even better. Those enamored by Stuart's usual concerns will be glad to learn this does not stray terribly far from those, but there is a deeper maturity and muscularity, a clarity in this new work and in a word - it's magnificent.
Set in the late '90's, the titular character is 22-year-old John-Calum MacLeod, known as Cal, who following graduation from an art college in Edinburgh, is summoned back to his hometown of Falabay on the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides, allegedly to help his father John cope with his ailing maternal grandmother, Ella. Cal has had to hide his sexual orientation from his family, especially his upright religious father, and fears how he will cope going back to the scene of an unhappy childhood, scarred by his parents' acrimonious divorce.
Not only is Stuart a master at delineating character and creating riveting scenes, but he has an uncanny ear for dialogue, and adding little touches of Scottish Gaelic (even if I had to run to Google Translate a few more times than I cared to!) is a delightful surprise.
No spoilers, but at almost the exact halfway point in the book, there is a revelation that upends everything - and I read the entire second half in a marathon of 7 hours as I couldn't wait to find out what happens. Needless to say, this will again top my list for the best book of the year ... and I'm just sorry I'll have to wait so long for others to read it, so we can discuss!
If this DOESN'T make the 2026 Booker longlist, at least, I swear, there WILL be blood!! And if there's any justice, Stuart will become the next double Booker -winner. I simply cannot imagine a finer novel coming out between now and next October.
Well, I am happy to report my fears were for naught, as John of John: A Novel is not only the equal of its predecessors but I think, if anything, is even better. Those enamored by Stuart's usual concerns will be glad to learn this does not stray terribly far from those, but there is a deeper maturity and muscularity, a clarity in this new work and in a word - it's magnificent.
Set in the late '90's, the titular character is 22-year-old John-Calum MacLeod, known as Cal, who following graduation from an art college in Edinburgh, is summoned back to his hometown of Falabay on the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides, allegedly to help his father John cope with his ailing maternal grandmother, Ella. Cal has had to hide his sexual orientation from his family, especially his upright religious father, and fears how he will cope going back to the scene of an unhappy childhood, scarred by his parents' acrimonious divorce.
Not only is Stuart a master at delineating character and creating riveting scenes, but he has an uncanny ear for dialogue, and adding little touches of Scottish Gaelic (even if I had to run to Google Translate a few more times than I cared to!) is a delightful surprise.
No spoilers, but at almost the exact halfway point in the book, there is a revelation that upends everything - and I read the entire second half in a marathon of 7 hours as I couldn't wait to find out what happens. Needless to say, this will again top my list for the best book of the year ... and I'm just sorry I'll have to wait so long for others to read it, so we can discuss!
If this DOESN'T make the 2026 Booker longlist, at least, I swear, there WILL be blood!! And if there's any justice, Stuart will become the next double Booker -winner. I simply cannot imagine a finer novel coming out between now and next October.
Currently reading
December 29, 2025Okay, let's do the new, upcoming Stuart, which hopefully gets him back to the heights of Shuggie Bain!
NOTES:
Harris
Harris tweed
croft
NOTES:
Harris
Harris tweed
croft
November 18, 2025
✰ 3.75 stars ✰
Douglas Stuart's writing is effortless in its ability to draw you so completely into the lives of his characters that time passes by so smoothly and you don't even realize how much you've read till you realize how late it's been. It's almost melodious with its subtle balance of humor and heart and hurt. 🤌🏻🤌🏻 A vivid honesty to their voices that makes them feel so alive. It's how it made me immersed in this complicated relationship between a father and son - John and John-Callum, Cal - each shouldering their burden of secrets with a silence that oftentimes can be its own form of punishment. 😔
Their moving story is more than just that of John of John, a dynamic built on how unlike they are, that had me fully entwined, just as the yarn they wove. It's a family member hiding buried truths, a friend watching and wanting - I deserve a love that was worth it - a lost soul drowning their sorrows, and an island lush with Gaelic dialect of Falabay … that’s a hard place. Hard, but beautiful that fully captures the essence of wishing for more than you can, hoping that you can find it without losing yourself in the process, but still settled with what you have. 🫂
“I’d like to get lost with you...”
It was so strange how the lyrics of The Mob Song from Beauty and the Beast echoed in my head throughout. I know it's so odd, but, sometimes the most damning of pitchforks sometimes lies within. Dazed, but not broken, the lamb screamed to be released. 💔 It haunted me throughout, in the aching quietness of these intimate moments that carried hidden undertones that gave me this bittersweet feeling of hoping for the best for everyone. A tension tightly wound that it was only the anticipation of it snapping that kept me baited, unsure if I was ready to see the eventual fallout. 😢
Certain reveals towards the end have me conflicted; I felt --- hoodwinked. It's a strong, harsh word, but I cannot deny I was not entirely satisfied with their portrayal. 🤔 Maybe I missed the signs of how strong the sense of community and loyalty lies within that I was unable to wholly accept it. But - home is where the heart is - I cannot argue with that. For there was one moment where my emotions viscerally felt the sorrow of uncertainty and regret, tried to find himself amidst all the noise. The swell of the fear of loss, tinged with guilt and loneliness, hit me hard to my heart's core, and I won't ever forget it. 🥹
“Make yourself happy, son. Christ above, let one of us be happy.”
I may have liked Cal slightly more than the author's other two previous protagonists, perhaps because Cal is the eldest of them, a man with a good head on his shoulders - sometimes. 🥺 Or perhaps it was because his life story was not as bleak as that of Shuggie Bain. But Young Mungo will forever have me longing for closure; hoping one day the author will return to his story to fill the void it left in my heart. And if there is a story about William (iykyk), then I wouldn't mind that either. ❤️🩹
“All I want from this world is someone to love, and here you are.”
Douglas Stuart's writing is effortless in its ability to draw you so completely into the lives of his characters that time passes by so smoothly and you don't even realize how much you've read till you realize how late it's been. It's almost melodious with its subtle balance of humor and heart and hurt. 🤌🏻🤌🏻 A vivid honesty to their voices that makes them feel so alive. It's how it made me immersed in this complicated relationship between a father and son - John and John-Callum, Cal - each shouldering their burden of secrets with a silence that oftentimes can be its own form of punishment. 😔
Their moving story is more than just that of John of John, a dynamic built on how unlike they are, that had me fully entwined, just as the yarn they wove. It's a family member hiding buried truths, a friend watching and wanting - I deserve a love that was worth it - a lost soul drowning their sorrows, and an island lush with Gaelic dialect of Falabay … that’s a hard place. Hard, but beautiful that fully captures the essence of wishing for more than you can, hoping that you can find it without losing yourself in the process, but still settled with what you have. 🫂
“I’d like to get lost with you...”
It was so strange how the lyrics of The Mob Song from Beauty and the Beast echoed in my head throughout. I know it's so odd, but, sometimes the most damning of pitchforks sometimes lies within. Dazed, but not broken, the lamb screamed to be released. 💔 It haunted me throughout, in the aching quietness of these intimate moments that carried hidden undertones that gave me this bittersweet feeling of hoping for the best for everyone. A tension tightly wound that it was only the anticipation of it snapping that kept me baited, unsure if I was ready to see the eventual fallout. 😢
Certain reveals towards the end have me conflicted; I felt --- hoodwinked. It's a strong, harsh word, but I cannot deny I was not entirely satisfied with their portrayal. 🤔 Maybe I missed the signs of how strong the sense of community and loyalty lies within that I was unable to wholly accept it. But - home is where the heart is - I cannot argue with that. For there was one moment where my emotions viscerally felt the sorrow of uncertainty and regret, tried to find himself amidst all the noise. The swell of the fear of loss, tinged with guilt and loneliness, hit me hard to my heart's core, and I won't ever forget it. 🥹
“Make yourself happy, son. Christ above, let one of us be happy.”
I may have liked Cal slightly more than the author's other two previous protagonists, perhaps because Cal is the eldest of them, a man with a good head on his shoulders - sometimes. 🥺 Or perhaps it was because his life story was not as bleak as that of Shuggie Bain. But Young Mungo will forever have me longing for closure; hoping one day the author will return to his story to fill the void it left in my heart. And if there is a story about William (iykyk), then I wouldn't mind that either. ❤️🩹
October 1, 2025
'You make me feel so lonely.'
'I'm right here.'
*sobs*
'I'm right here.'
*sobs*
October 19, 2025
profoundly affecting, it is simply a perfect novel and stuart a perfect writer.
December 21, 2025
a beautiful, heartfelt and tender novel. truly a very special book and firmly cements douglas stuart as my favourite author of all time
December 1, 2025
My first Douglas Stuart book is *John of John*, and I can see why readers love his writing. Although the book is four hundred pages, it feels lush and expansive, offering so much to take in. Stuart’s style is funny, heart wrenching, and melancholic, often all within a single verse.
The story follows a father and a son and explores what happens when long kept secrets are revealed and when their relationship does not match the expectations either of them carries.
John and Cal Macleod are brought back together when Cal returns home to Harris, Ireland, after being unable to find a job following his graduation from fashion school. He slips back into life on the family farm, tending sheep, working at a local pub, and trying to make ends meet. John, a strict Presbyterian preacher, refuses to accept who Cal truly is.
“If I do not ask Jesus to save me, do you think I will really go to hell”
They live with Cal’s grandmother, Ella, who becomes one of the most memorable figures in the novel. John of John*will make you laugh out loud because its characters are unlike anyone you have met before.
“There were times when he felt he knew his son better than he knew himself. There were other times when Cal looked at him with some distance, when John thought: Oh, I do not know this man at all.”
Throughout the book, there are moments of breathtaking description that I found myself rereading simply to take in their beauty.
“The pancake had arrived on a piece of flat cardboard as though she had known he would lock himself in his room and had the foresight to bake something flat and find something thin enough to slide it in on.”
Overall, "John of John" is a story about fathers and sons, about relationships that may or may not be mended, about hidden truths, and about the search for happiness. I especially loved that the story is set in the nineties. There are references to The Cure, The Inspiral Carpets, John Hughes, and Top Gun, all things I grew up with and remember fondly.
While things seem to tear apart at the seams, families will find a reckoning, unlike anything you've read before. John of John is another great Douglas Stuart book!
The story follows a father and a son and explores what happens when long kept secrets are revealed and when their relationship does not match the expectations either of them carries.
John and Cal Macleod are brought back together when Cal returns home to Harris, Ireland, after being unable to find a job following his graduation from fashion school. He slips back into life on the family farm, tending sheep, working at a local pub, and trying to make ends meet. John, a strict Presbyterian preacher, refuses to accept who Cal truly is.
“If I do not ask Jesus to save me, do you think I will really go to hell”
They live with Cal’s grandmother, Ella, who becomes one of the most memorable figures in the novel. John of John*will make you laugh out loud because its characters are unlike anyone you have met before.
“There were times when he felt he knew his son better than he knew himself. There were other times when Cal looked at him with some distance, when John thought: Oh, I do not know this man at all.”
Throughout the book, there are moments of breathtaking description that I found myself rereading simply to take in their beauty.
“The pancake had arrived on a piece of flat cardboard as though she had known he would lock himself in his room and had the foresight to bake something flat and find something thin enough to slide it in on.”
Overall, "John of John" is a story about fathers and sons, about relationships that may or may not be mended, about hidden truths, and about the search for happiness. I especially loved that the story is set in the nineties. There are references to The Cure, The Inspiral Carpets, John Hughes, and Top Gun, all things I grew up with and remember fondly.
While things seem to tear apart at the seams, families will find a reckoning, unlike anything you've read before. John of John is another great Douglas Stuart book!
Read
November 29, 2025Every time I read a novel like this—where the storytelling, the characterisation, and especially the dialogue are so exceptionally well done—I feel enormous pressure when I sit down to write the kind of review that would make people run to the bookshop that very moment and buy it. The problem is that the harder I try, the more difficult it becomes. I start feeling as if I’m repeating myself, that I’ve said it all before, that I’m being boring or predictable—or worse, that the whole review is riddled with typos and nonsense.
So perhaps the best thing I can say about this novel is that I fell in love with the characters from the start, I’ll never stop raving about its dialogue, and, most importantly, after its conclusion all I can think is: I hope this is only the first volume of a trilogy.
In the wrong hands, a story like this would, without any doubt, turn into contrivance central. In this case, though, I can already see it being one of 2026’s best novels.
Now, please, Mr Stuart—tell me volume two is coming soon.
So perhaps the best thing I can say about this novel is that I fell in love with the characters from the start, I’ll never stop raving about its dialogue, and, most importantly, after its conclusion all I can think is: I hope this is only the first volume of a trilogy.
In the wrong hands, a story like this would, without any doubt, turn into contrivance central. In this case, though, I can already see it being one of 2026’s best novels.
Now, please, Mr Stuart—tell me volume two is coming soon.
Want to read
December 22, 2025slay
December 10, 2025
It’s the late 90’s and John-Calum Macleod (Cal) is a 22-year-old recent graduate from art/textile school. Cal’s Puritanical father, the more senior 'John' in the story, convinces his son to ditch the metropolitan mainland and return to the family farm that sits on a speck of land in the Iles of Scotland. As Cal rides the ferry back home, coming down off ecstasy and concealing his long-dyed hair and sexuality, we gain a sense of the secrets that complicate his return. This book forces reader to contemplate early and often whether lies are less painful than truths.
Our setting shines with colors richer than the dour gray skylines. For generations the Macleod’s weaved every shade of the spectrum in their family loom, transforming wool into vibrant creations. Ultra-religious dad lives with his hoot of a mother, Ella, and she and Cal are close, often co-conspirators. To amplify family dynamics even further, when Cal was nine his mother walked out on him and his zealot Dad to settle down with John's older brother on the other side of the island. Douglas Stuart sets the pins wobbling before a ball is even rolled.
Sexuality and religion fuse into a beautiful literary experience in John of John. A universe of characters come alive and populate the tiny islands with stark realism. As a straight guy I wondered how deeply I would connect with the personal struggles of closeted gay characters, but this author has so many fascinating flourishes (farming, weaving, CB radios, church politics), he creates a story about relationships sure to appeal to wide audiences. It’s less emotionally draining than Shuggie Bain but as artfully composed. The last quarter of the book is impossible to not read in a single setting and morphs into Tom Hardy for modern times. Highly recommended.
Thanks to NetGalley, Edelweiss and Grove Atlantic for a review copy.
Our setting shines with colors richer than the dour gray skylines. For generations the Macleod’s weaved every shade of the spectrum in their family loom, transforming wool into vibrant creations. Ultra-religious dad lives with his hoot of a mother, Ella, and she and Cal are close, often co-conspirators. To amplify family dynamics even further, when Cal was nine his mother walked out on him and his zealot Dad to settle down with John's older brother on the other side of the island. Douglas Stuart sets the pins wobbling before a ball is even rolled.
Sexuality and religion fuse into a beautiful literary experience in John of John. A universe of characters come alive and populate the tiny islands with stark realism. As a straight guy I wondered how deeply I would connect with the personal struggles of closeted gay characters, but this author has so many fascinating flourishes (farming, weaving, CB radios, church politics), he creates a story about relationships sure to appeal to wide audiences. It’s less emotionally draining than Shuggie Bain but as artfully composed. The last quarter of the book is impossible to not read in a single setting and morphs into Tom Hardy for modern times. Highly recommended.
Thanks to NetGalley, Edelweiss and Grove Atlantic for a review copy.
October 18, 2025
I absolutely loved both Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo, so I approached this book with intense excitement and just a touch of worry. What if it wasn't as good? Could an author really knock out 3 bangers in a row? Yes, if the author is Douglas Stuart.
I do say this with love, and anyone who has read the first two knows they are somewhat similar in their themes, part of me also wondered if John of John would be as similar to Shuggie and Mungo as they are to each other - but it isn't. There is humor in this, which I don't remember from the other two. Stuart's writing has gotten even better. John of John also deals with some tough subjects, and is absolutely just as emotional, but not as absolutely gut wrenchingly devastating (I also say this with love, because all I want is to weep - Shuggie and Mungo are perfect books for me). There are so so many beautiful lines. I'll share a few below. They aren't necessarily spoilers, but don't read if you'd rather go in completely blind.
I also absolutely loved how much Gaelic was in the book. I have been learning Gaelic for a year, and I loved recognizing many of the words and phrases, and learning new ones. I've been to several of the places mentioned and I loved being able to picture these characters there.
10/10
"if he didn't stand his ground then John would scrape at him like the tide until Cal became a shoreline he no longer recognised"
"you make me feel so lonely.
I'm right here."
"I have been nothing but a dog at your side for years now.... How ashamed I would be if anyone knew what I had settled for"
"I have let sin into the house. As though sin were black flies and I'm a window he left open"
There is also a scene early on in the book that I found just so beautiful, I had several people read the paragraph. It's about matching yarn to the colors in nature that inspired the threads. Such a quiet, beautiful moment.
I loved this so so much.
Thank you Grove Press and Penguin for sending me the galley I started begging for months ago.
I do say this with love, and anyone who has read the first two knows they are somewhat similar in their themes, part of me also wondered if John of John would be as similar to Shuggie and Mungo as they are to each other - but it isn't. There is humor in this, which I don't remember from the other two. Stuart's writing has gotten even better. John of John also deals with some tough subjects, and is absolutely just as emotional, but not as absolutely gut wrenchingly devastating (I also say this with love, because all I want is to weep - Shuggie and Mungo are perfect books for me). There are so so many beautiful lines. I'll share a few below. They aren't necessarily spoilers, but don't read if you'd rather go in completely blind.
I also absolutely loved how much Gaelic was in the book. I have been learning Gaelic for a year, and I loved recognizing many of the words and phrases, and learning new ones. I've been to several of the places mentioned and I loved being able to picture these characters there.
10/10
"if he didn't stand his ground then John would scrape at him like the tide until Cal became a shoreline he no longer recognised"
"you make me feel so lonely.
I'm right here."
"I have been nothing but a dog at your side for years now.... How ashamed I would be if anyone knew what I had settled for"
"I have let sin into the house. As though sin were black flies and I'm a window he left open"
There is also a scene early on in the book that I found just so beautiful, I had several people read the paragraph. It's about matching yarn to the colors in nature that inspired the threads. Such a quiet, beautiful moment.
I loved this so so much.
Thank you Grove Press and Penguin for sending me the galley I started begging for months ago.
November 4, 2025
Douglas Stuart is my best friend (in my head) and I love him (in real life)
He NEVER misses, this was an absolutely stunning book and more than on par with Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo, both of which I also adore. The setting, the characters, the writing, just pure beauty and a joy to read.
He NEVER misses, this was an absolutely stunning book and more than on par with Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo, both of which I also adore. The setting, the characters, the writing, just pure beauty and a joy to read.
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December 11, 2025My favourite tearjerker is back! This is how you write a queer melodrama - no misery porn, no breaking at the highest notes, no sappiness. The added bonus is my growing obsession with everything Scottish, especially the climate. Queerness, melodrama, sea, and rain - I’m as happy as a proverbial clam. More please!
December 6, 2025
Men knotted by duty, desire, and the weight of a place that refuses to let them slip free
Blown away!
First off, thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the digital ARC.
My first Douglas Stuart novel and it floored me. This is a queer book in the truest sense – not as a badge, not as decoration but as something lived, feared, guarded and carried across generations. Stuart captures the weight of desire when it sits inside a community that would rather pretend it is not there. He shows how men learn to fold themselves into shapes that please others, how silence hardens into tradition and how love endures even when bruised, compromised or half buried.
The writing is sharp. The place presses in on the characters and the emotional tension never loosens. It is gentle in moments, harsh in others and always honest. The relationships feel cut from real lives: loyal, selfish, devout, tentative, hopeful. Stuart understands queer longing in close quarters, the steep cost of secrecy and the strange relief found in the smallest signs of connection.
This is a novel about men who cannot speak their truth and what happens when that refusal becomes inherited. Bleak, gripping and unexpectedly moving. I was not prepared for the depth of it.
Blown away!
First off, thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the digital ARC.
My first Douglas Stuart novel and it floored me. This is a queer book in the truest sense – not as a badge, not as decoration but as something lived, feared, guarded and carried across generations. Stuart captures the weight of desire when it sits inside a community that would rather pretend it is not there. He shows how men learn to fold themselves into shapes that please others, how silence hardens into tradition and how love endures even when bruised, compromised or half buried.
The writing is sharp. The place presses in on the characters and the emotional tension never loosens. It is gentle in moments, harsh in others and always honest. The relationships feel cut from real lives: loyal, selfish, devout, tentative, hopeful. Stuart understands queer longing in close quarters, the steep cost of secrecy and the strange relief found in the smallest signs of connection.
This is a novel about men who cannot speak their truth and what happens when that refusal becomes inherited. Bleak, gripping and unexpectedly moving. I was not prepared for the depth of it.
November 27, 2025
My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.
John-Calum Macleod, Cal, for short, is a closeted university grad with no prospects and a tense relationship with his family. The story begins when he’s guilted into returning home to the isolated island of Harris to help care for his ailing grandmother. Cal's return home is rife with internal conflict; between his tense relationship with his father, and his secret gay identity; Harris is the last place Cal wants to be.
He and his strict Calvinist father, the elder John Macleod, quarrel over almost everything and tensions in the house never cool below a simmer. Cal’s grandmother, Ella, has a deep and shocking non-conformist streak and doesn’t speak a word of Gaelic, leaving her cut out of most of the household conversations. John and Cal brawl like rats in a shoe over the direction Cal’s life is taking. Every interaction becomes a battlefield between a father’s expectations and his son’s desire for self-determination. In the small, tightly woven community, no one’s dirty laundry goes unseen, and the Macleod family has more than most.
To describe the plot any further than this brief outline would risk spoiling a story that should be experienced firsthand; so I’ll stop there.
I was pulled in from the first paragraph and stayed enthralled throughout this novel. The characters, always Stuart’s strong suit, instantly became like real people to me, well-loved and cantankerous relatives maybe. The personal drama of the islanders was doled out with precise timing in a way that kept me acutely intrigued. Who will prevail in the decades-long battle of wills between John and Ella over ownership of the house? Why did Cal’s mother leave and will he ever go to see her? Can Cal keep his sexuality a secret, while remaining true to himself, in this tiny community where snooping and gossip are everyone’s pastime of choice? All these questions and more kept me hooked.
I cannot overstate how enjoyable it was to read a novel composed of such brilliantly beautiful language. Like witnessing a hawk in flight or a shooting star, the elegance of the prose at times compelled stillness and contemplation. It was almost distracting how stunningly well written this book was. Phrases, sentences, and whole paragraphs would stop me dead in my tracks. My e-reader's highlight feature never had so much use.
Douglas Stuart is one of the most talented writers living today and I’m not even exaggerating. Every novel is amazing and they’re only getting more powerful and nuanced the more of them he writes. Stuart’s style is phenomenal and inimitable. He’s able to conjure characters with kaleidoscopically rich inner lives, all too relatable flaws, and thrust them into dramatic circumstances that smack of Greek Tragedy. He has Thomas Hardy's gift for depicting natural beauty in a lovingly evocative yet unsentimental way and then layering that alongside the human suffering of the characters who populate his work. He writes with such a deft hand that the mundane and even squalid scenes of everyday life become somehow charming and charged with meaning.
I can’t really find flaws in this novel even though I’m someone who loves critiquing and picking apart things they like. This book is not simply good, it’s uncommonly, startlingly, excellent. I’ve read one hundred other books this year, John of John is my favorite by far. Even in a year of many outstanding books, the contest wasn’t even close.
John-Calum Macleod, Cal, for short, is a closeted university grad with no prospects and a tense relationship with his family. The story begins when he’s guilted into returning home to the isolated island of Harris to help care for his ailing grandmother. Cal's return home is rife with internal conflict; between his tense relationship with his father, and his secret gay identity; Harris is the last place Cal wants to be.
He and his strict Calvinist father, the elder John Macleod, quarrel over almost everything and tensions in the house never cool below a simmer. Cal’s grandmother, Ella, has a deep and shocking non-conformist streak and doesn’t speak a word of Gaelic, leaving her cut out of most of the household conversations. John and Cal brawl like rats in a shoe over the direction Cal’s life is taking. Every interaction becomes a battlefield between a father’s expectations and his son’s desire for self-determination. In the small, tightly woven community, no one’s dirty laundry goes unseen, and the Macleod family has more than most.
To describe the plot any further than this brief outline would risk spoiling a story that should be experienced firsthand; so I’ll stop there.
I was pulled in from the first paragraph and stayed enthralled throughout this novel. The characters, always Stuart’s strong suit, instantly became like real people to me, well-loved and cantankerous relatives maybe. The personal drama of the islanders was doled out with precise timing in a way that kept me acutely intrigued. Who will prevail in the decades-long battle of wills between John and Ella over ownership of the house? Why did Cal’s mother leave and will he ever go to see her? Can Cal keep his sexuality a secret, while remaining true to himself, in this tiny community where snooping and gossip are everyone’s pastime of choice? All these questions and more kept me hooked.
I cannot overstate how enjoyable it was to read a novel composed of such brilliantly beautiful language. Like witnessing a hawk in flight or a shooting star, the elegance of the prose at times compelled stillness and contemplation. It was almost distracting how stunningly well written this book was. Phrases, sentences, and whole paragraphs would stop me dead in my tracks. My e-reader's highlight feature never had so much use.
Douglas Stuart is one of the most talented writers living today and I’m not even exaggerating. Every novel is amazing and they’re only getting more powerful and nuanced the more of them he writes. Stuart’s style is phenomenal and inimitable. He’s able to conjure characters with kaleidoscopically rich inner lives, all too relatable flaws, and thrust them into dramatic circumstances that smack of Greek Tragedy. He has Thomas Hardy's gift for depicting natural beauty in a lovingly evocative yet unsentimental way and then layering that alongside the human suffering of the characters who populate his work. He writes with such a deft hand that the mundane and even squalid scenes of everyday life become somehow charming and charged with meaning.
I can’t really find flaws in this novel even though I’m someone who loves critiquing and picking apart things they like. This book is not simply good, it’s uncommonly, startlingly, excellent. I’ve read one hundred other books this year, John of John is my favorite by far. Even in a year of many outstanding books, the contest wasn’t even close.
December 3, 2025
“innes looked up and saw himself in the mirror. the old fool grasping at ghosts.”
i have consistently enjoyed all of douglas stuart’s novels – shuggie bain was truly special, and young mungo had me weeping towards the end. but i think john of john might be his best work yet – its characters are so deeply humane (innes! i love you so much!) and the story is just the quietest, most beautiful thing i have read in a while. stuart’s prose is stunning, and he perfectly conveys the humid, quiet ambience of the northern scottish island where the story is set; a story about queer men, about fathers and sons and grandmothers and childhood friends, about aging and seeing oneself in your child, and also about being that grown child who looks—really looks—at their parent for the first time; not as a parent, but as a human being. john’s perspective was complex and beautiful, and i ultimately enjoyed this more than i ever thought i would (mind you, my expectations were already quite high going into it). i think it may well be among my favourite books of 2025, and i cannot wait for this to come out so that i can pester everyone i know about it.
many thanks to netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
i have consistently enjoyed all of douglas stuart’s novels – shuggie bain was truly special, and young mungo had me weeping towards the end. but i think john of john might be his best work yet – its characters are so deeply humane (innes! i love you so much!) and the story is just the quietest, most beautiful thing i have read in a while. stuart’s prose is stunning, and he perfectly conveys the humid, quiet ambience of the northern scottish island where the story is set; a story about queer men, about fathers and sons and grandmothers and childhood friends, about aging and seeing oneself in your child, and also about being that grown child who looks—really looks—at their parent for the first time; not as a parent, but as a human being. john’s perspective was complex and beautiful, and i ultimately enjoyed this more than i ever thought i would (mind you, my expectations were already quite high going into it). i think it may well be among my favourite books of 2025, and i cannot wait for this to come out so that i can pester everyone i know about it.
many thanks to netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
November 21, 2025
*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.*
John of John follows John-Calum Macleod who goes by Cal as he takes the ferry back home to the island of Harris. Cal left the island to go to college but he hasn’t managed to find a job and he has run out of money. On the island he lives with John, his father and Ella, his grandmother in his childhood home. Cal has changed but everyone on the island has stayed the same. His father cannot understand why Cal doesn’t have the same values as him and he struggles to connect with Cal. John has secrets of his own though and they could bring him and Cal together.
This book is very special to me and I think this is Stuart’s best work. This is set on an island and the atmosphere is just spectacular. This is such a quiet novel and so much is said in this. I haven’t loved Stuart’s other novels but I think this stands out to me because of the island setting. It was easy to understand Cal and John and at times it was painful to read their miscommunications. John is definitely a complex character but living on an isolated island has made him that way. Cal likes living on the island but he wants to be himself and he can’t do that where he lives. I love the way this depicts connection both familial and romantic. John’s story is particularly impactful and the ending was beautiful.
John of John follows John-Calum Macleod who goes by Cal as he takes the ferry back home to the island of Harris. Cal left the island to go to college but he hasn’t managed to find a job and he has run out of money. On the island he lives with John, his father and Ella, his grandmother in his childhood home. Cal has changed but everyone on the island has stayed the same. His father cannot understand why Cal doesn’t have the same values as him and he struggles to connect with Cal. John has secrets of his own though and they could bring him and Cal together.
This book is very special to me and I think this is Stuart’s best work. This is set on an island and the atmosphere is just spectacular. This is such a quiet novel and so much is said in this. I haven’t loved Stuart’s other novels but I think this stands out to me because of the island setting. It was easy to understand Cal and John and at times it was painful to read their miscommunications. John is definitely a complex character but living on an isolated island has made him that way. Cal likes living on the island but he wants to be himself and he can’t do that where he lives. I love the way this depicts connection both familial and romantic. John’s story is particularly impactful and the ending was beautiful.
November 25, 2025
It was an incredibly immersive experience to read John of John. It's a unique story about family, roots, duty, love and difficulties of living in a small community that struggles to make a living. Stuart crafted a spectacular cast of characters, and I appreciated the complexities of their personalities, as well as their relationships with one another. The father-son relationship between John and Cal felt extremely real and it was very interesting to watch it evolve throughout the novel. I also loved the women in this story, Ella and Isla, always in the background, yet still extremely important to the plot. Innes's storyline made my heart ache many times, and I grew particularly fond of him as well.
The setting was masterfully crafted, and transported me effortlessly to a Scottish island that I never even tried to picture before. It complemented the quietness of the story, which remains its greatest strength in my opinion. I absolutely loved the ending, which I didn't see coming. I do wish we’d had an epilogue to see what happens next - especially with the younger characters - but I understand it might have lessened the ending’s impact.
Nevertheless, there were some plot points that bothered me slightly. One major one - which I won’t reveal here - occurs in the second half of the book and involves a relationship development that disturbed me quite a bit.
It was my first Douglas Stuart's novel, and it definitely won't be my last. I'm itching to pick up his previous works after this read.
Thank you Groove Atlantic and NetGalley for the ARC of this novel.
The setting was masterfully crafted, and transported me effortlessly to a Scottish island that I never even tried to picture before. It complemented the quietness of the story, which remains its greatest strength in my opinion. I absolutely loved the ending, which I didn't see coming. I do wish we’d had an epilogue to see what happens next - especially with the younger characters - but I understand it might have lessened the ending’s impact.
Nevertheless, there were some plot points that bothered me slightly. One major one - which I won’t reveal here - occurs in the second half of the book and involves a relationship development that disturbed me quite a bit.
It was my first Douglas Stuart's novel, and it definitely won't be my last. I'm itching to pick up his previous works after this read.
Thank you Groove Atlantic and NetGalley for the ARC of this novel.
December 19, 2025
COMING MAY 2026
Thank you so much @picadorbooks for sending me this masterpiece 6 months ahead of release. I can still remember exactly where I was sitting when I found out that Douglas Stuart had written another book, and I can safely say that I have never been this excited to see a story being released into the world. Douglas Stuart is a writer who will be marvelled at for generations to come, and rightly so, his writing is a true gift.
John of John is a life affirming, deeply profound book, a story so rich with love, grief and longing that I felt as though my heart was falling out of my chest as I turned the pages. I’m not sure that I have ever yearned for characters to find happiness, resolution and belonging in such a desperate way before, I cared about their lives with such ferocity, and I always will. With a narrative as raw and gritty as the landscape itself, John of John asks us a multitude of important questions about human connection, identity, and ultimately, survival.
John of John is nothing short of a work of art, and I would not be at all surprised if Douglas Stuart becomes a second time Booker winner for this astounding novel.
Thank you so much @picadorbooks for sending me this masterpiece 6 months ahead of release. I can still remember exactly where I was sitting when I found out that Douglas Stuart had written another book, and I can safely say that I have never been this excited to see a story being released into the world. Douglas Stuart is a writer who will be marvelled at for generations to come, and rightly so, his writing is a true gift.
John of John is a life affirming, deeply profound book, a story so rich with love, grief and longing that I felt as though my heart was falling out of my chest as I turned the pages. I’m not sure that I have ever yearned for characters to find happiness, resolution and belonging in such a desperate way before, I cared about their lives with such ferocity, and I always will. With a narrative as raw and gritty as the landscape itself, John of John asks us a multitude of important questions about human connection, identity, and ultimately, survival.
John of John is nothing short of a work of art, and I would not be at all surprised if Douglas Stuart becomes a second time Booker winner for this astounding novel.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
this was a painful revelation, this book. I started reading it as a clean slate because I've never read the works of Douglas Stuart before, but now I can go to a bookshop and buy his books with the trust that it'll be having characters that are human. telling the story of a father and son in a Scottish seaside community, the philosophies, the grief and the secrets they carry.
one sentence that I loved in this book was when the father and his mother in law was having their talk, and when the father was reluctant to lead the life he wants and be honest with his son, the mother in law saying "islands inside islands, inside islands inside islands." That's the only accurate way to describe this book. it's a story inside a story inside a story inside a story. it goes deeper, it gets harder and it gets sadder as it goes. I can remember a single time that I actually laughed while reading this book, and I can vaguely remember the million times that I cried and my heart ached before finishing it. I'm not going to give any spoilers or any hint on the storyline, but if you are someone who loves reading books about simple lives and simple humans who are confused and conflicted, if u like to know how to navigate through life, if u wish to read a book so painfully honest about being gay, then go for it! releasing on may 2026!!!
one sentence that I loved in this book was when the father and his mother in law was having their talk, and when the father was reluctant to lead the life he wants and be honest with his son, the mother in law saying "islands inside islands, inside islands inside islands." That's the only accurate way to describe this book. it's a story inside a story inside a story inside a story. it goes deeper, it gets harder and it gets sadder as it goes. I can remember a single time that I actually laughed while reading this book, and I can vaguely remember the million times that I cried and my heart ached before finishing it. I'm not going to give any spoilers or any hint on the storyline, but if you are someone who loves reading books about simple lives and simple humans who are confused and conflicted, if u like to know how to navigate through life, if u wish to read a book so painfully honest about being gay, then go for it! releasing on may 2026!!!
December 8, 2025
Douglas Stuart is just a master at character writing. All the personalities in this book feel so real and well formed that it’s hard to believe they are fictional. I felt so profoundly immersed in this world that Stuart had created.
I really enjoyed the commentary on religion and its impact on small communities which has led to persecution and ostracism. I think it’s incredibly sad that some of these attitudes still exist today. It’s an important message to draw attention to and Stuart does it extremely well in John of John.
I also really liked the dynamic between Cal, John, Ella and Innes. How of these characters are held back and tortured by mistakes, secrets and doubts just trying to be understood, accepted and loved. It’s tragic and at times bitterly painful.
It’s also just as hilarious at times as Stuart’s other books, one highlight had me in tears:
“'What noise does a chicken make, Granny? And your granny would go, 'Cluck!' Then it was What noise does a lamb make, Granny? And your granny would go, 'Baa! Then it was And what noise does a cow make, Granny? And your granny said, 'Bool' And Bella wagged her finger and says, Don't you mean moo, Granny!' And your granny goes, No, I mean Boo. Boo! Cos this is fuckin' boring!"
I am a lifelong Douglas Stuart fan. He can do no wrong.
I really enjoyed the commentary on religion and its impact on small communities which has led to persecution and ostracism. I think it’s incredibly sad that some of these attitudes still exist today. It’s an important message to draw attention to and Stuart does it extremely well in John of John.
I also really liked the dynamic between Cal, John, Ella and Innes. How of these characters are held back and tortured by mistakes, secrets and doubts just trying to be understood, accepted and loved. It’s tragic and at times bitterly painful.
It’s also just as hilarious at times as Stuart’s other books, one highlight had me in tears:
“'What noise does a chicken make, Granny? And your granny would go, 'Cluck!' Then it was What noise does a lamb make, Granny? And your granny would go, 'Baa! Then it was And what noise does a cow make, Granny? And your granny said, 'Bool' And Bella wagged her finger and says, Don't you mean moo, Granny!' And your granny goes, No, I mean Boo. Boo! Cos this is fuckin' boring!"
I am a lifelong Douglas Stuart fan. He can do no wrong.
December 15, 2025
When he was underfoot, John would give him spools of colour and send him outside to find the article that had inspired them with strict instruction not to come home again until he had matched the colours perfectly. Cal liked the searching, the wandering with watchful purpose, the reward. He would return, holding the hem of his jumper, and his father would take the bladder wrack, the scab of lichen, or the guillemot feather and hold it next to the yarn. Cal’s matching became near exact. “But you’ve no match for the teal,” his father had said. “The teal is the sea. But when I filled my hand with seawater it was a watery nothing.” He picked at the tiny green flecks amongst the teal. “So I have matched it, but we need to go look at it together, where the water meets the kelp, and floats over the sand underneath.” John would bury his nose in Cal’s crown and inhale the fresh air. It was on days like this that Cal came to love colour.
In July 2020, trying as always to get ahead of the Booker longlist I read a NetGalley ARC of “Shuggie Bain”, then still to be published in the UK but getting some tips from US Booker-followers and posted (11 days ahead of the longlist announcement) to the Mookse and Gripes group on Goodreads (in the midst of feverish speculation) – “Just read Shuggie Bain. I could even see it as a winner. My first thoughts are that it fits into the “if you only read one book this year then read this one” category”.
My review of it concluded “It is a desperately moving, heathbreaking book: one which places hope and despair, love and brokenness on the same page, treating them with equal weight and empathy” – a comment I know the author saw and appreciated on Twitter. When some four months later my views proved prescient I reposted my thoughts to Twitter and the BBC Live Feed featured my congratulatory quote just ahead of the nationalist-politician Nicola Sturgeon.
And I feel that quote still stands as the best way to describe what makes Douglas Stuart such a special writer.
I also really enjoyed Stuart’s second book “Young Mungo” (2022) – which was largely written (under a working title “Loch Awe”) at the time of Stuart’s Booker win. Billed perhaps not entirely accurately at that time as a same-sex sectarian divide take on Romeo and Juliet, I saw it more as about the insidiuous toxicity of masculinity when amplified by social deprivation. If I had a criticism it was that the novel was cut a little too much from the same literary cloth as Shuggie Bain and that I felt a key challenge for the author was to show he could move on in his writing – in location at the least – and looked forward to his rumoured third novel set in the Hebrides.
And so now we have “John of John” – its setting the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides – where Stuart spent several months in 2019 while he waited anxiously for the publication of his debut – and its every bit as good as I had hoped.
The novel set in the late 1990s, opens with Cal McLeod – actually John-Calum Mcleod with lineage “John of John of Iain of Iain the Breadbadair weaver)” from the (fictional) settlement of Falabay. Cal has recently completed art school on the mainland (a textile school on the Scottish Borders) but struggled to find any job and is living pretty well hand to mouth, so is in some small way glad to be summoned back to his home by his father John (an increasingly struggling sheep-farmer and traditional weaver, as well as Precentor – musical leader – of the fiercely “fire and brimstone” Free Presbyterian church) with the news that Cal’s maternal grandmother who owns the family croft in which the three of them live (Cal’s mother having left home for reasons never fully explained and now in a realtionship with John’s father’s dementia-suffering older brother) is suffering heart failure (“her feet as purple as calf liver” in the first of the colour-similies which are dotted through the novel, both John and Cal naturally attuned to the “language of colour” from their expertise with dyes).
Cal returns his hair bleached and shoulder length – which immediately causes a breach with his fiercely religious father who believes that it will shame him in front of his dwindling congregation and draw attention to Cal’s unspoken sexuality. And on his return Cal finds things are really not as his father portrayed it – his grandmother Ella (a fiercely independent Glaswegian) not as ill as he expected but the tensions in the family croft seemingly magnified.
And Cal also has to pick up relations rather abruptly broken off – with a girl Isla who the entire community seems to want him to marry, with Isla’s brother Doll who was more than a schoolboy friend, with Cal’s estranged mother. And meanwhile his father has a seemingly complex relationship with a nearby similar aged bachelor Innes McInnes (one of two brothers) – as well as his own church difficulties. And there are a myriad of other relationships in what is very much a novel about a community and about what it means for individuals to live in a community.
One thing that I really appreciated in the novel – and I think is one of Stuart’s great strengths is his ability to have characters whose actions and characters are far from black and white. And here as the narration moves between the third party viewpoints of different characters we realise that it is a lot more than Cal that have secrets in their past (or present), difficult relationships as well as motivations and plans which are not necessarily aligned with the motivations and plans of others (both those they think oppose them and those they belief they care for are are cared for by).
And from all of these tangled threads, Stuart very appropriately weaves a deeply colourful picture.
There is a brilliant critique of Virginia Woolf by John when referring to a small book club that meets – and which made me smile a lot:
we’ve read some Hogg, some James, and Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, which offended everybody. It’s set on Skye and there’s hardly a Scotsman in it. It’s a particularly English talent, that. The ability to visit foreign places and yet always think of yourself as the most interesting thing there.
But – and it’s the only real fault I can find in the book - I did later slightly smile and think if the same mild criticism could also be levelled at Stuart for visiting his non-native Hebrides and having a novel with a rather disproportionate amount of same sex attracted but troubled men.
But overall this is an outstanding novel – Stuart moving on not just in location but in maturity of writing while retaining both his geographical and literary roots.
It is one I will definitely revisit much nearer publication and on what I am sure will be (and definitely should be) its inevitable Booker longlisting.
He thought about himself as a young man, when he was fifteen and first falling in love. It had seemed possible to love both God and Innes and to live a quiet, half-life. He had no way of knowing how much lying it would take or how those lies would take root, how they needed constant tending, how they would grow thorny and wrap around all those who cared for him until they were all part of the tangle. It seemed a cruel joke, that even as he salted the earth around him, his lies were the most abundant fruit these rocks could ever produce.
My thanks to Grove Atlantic for an ARC via NetGalley
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
A book on familiar premise, discussing familiar themes yet under Stuart's meticulous hands it wove into something novel.
Summoned home bringing failure on his back, Calum Macleod was forced to face a bitter homecoming to his faulty family repressed by beliefs and financial strife. Stucked between a rock and a hard place, Calum found himself torn between filial duty and selfish dreams.
The dilemma of staying in a stagnant comfort or to brave the great unknown was treated in a manner that brought suspense and relevance to the common readers. Complex dynamic between his characters was the very heart of the story. Stuart seems to master the art of peeling himself from biasness and provide reasons to every human reaction.
I couldn't find flaws with his writing, just as much as i couldn't fault his pace. The turns of plot that's intentional and organic drove this story forward seamlessly. And through his vivid prose, the island life became a sharp projection in our minds.
Stuart brought finesse and ambiguity into the debate of faith versus desire. With great nuances, he demands readers to search deep into that in between space of right and wrong, responsibility and happiness. Heavy topics dealt with care in hope that it adds weight into our consciousness.
Unmatched character works provided vessel to these great narrations. Every role carried their own self-serving significance. And character growth that cemented Stuart as a writer of great importance in recent years. I just know John of John will make big ripples next year!
All my love for Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for this eARC.
Summoned home bringing failure on his back, Calum Macleod was forced to face a bitter homecoming to his faulty family repressed by beliefs and financial strife. Stucked between a rock and a hard place, Calum found himself torn between filial duty and selfish dreams.
The dilemma of staying in a stagnant comfort or to brave the great unknown was treated in a manner that brought suspense and relevance to the common readers. Complex dynamic between his characters was the very heart of the story. Stuart seems to master the art of peeling himself from biasness and provide reasons to every human reaction.
I couldn't find flaws with his writing, just as much as i couldn't fault his pace. The turns of plot that's intentional and organic drove this story forward seamlessly. And through his vivid prose, the island life became a sharp projection in our minds.
Stuart brought finesse and ambiguity into the debate of faith versus desire. With great nuances, he demands readers to search deep into that in between space of right and wrong, responsibility and happiness. Heavy topics dealt with care in hope that it adds weight into our consciousness.
Unmatched character works provided vessel to these great narrations. Every role carried their own self-serving significance. And character growth that cemented Stuart as a writer of great importance in recent years. I just know John of John will make big ripples next year!
All my love for Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for this eARC.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Above all, I feel like this is a story about identity. It follows John-Calum (Cal), called back on the Isle of Harris by his father, John, and he struggles. Cal has become accustomed to modern life in the city and at his father’s he is surrounded by land, tradition, work, and old fashioned thinking. He is out of place in all of it, as if the version of himself he became while away doesn’t quite belong here anymore. John, on the other hand, is accustomed to farming, faith and routine and unaccepting of big city ways.
The writing is so atmospheric that I felt I was being shown a relationship between a father and his son rather than being told about it. You can tell they care deeply about each other, but neither of them can speak plainly and the result is a deep seeded hurt. You can tell John loves his son, but not in a way that can reach Cal. What is hard to understand is that neither is deliberately unkind, it’s just that love is shown through work and silence rather than words or a hug.
The remote island setting is genius. It’s stark, beautiful and isolated all at once and amplifies the loneliness of both John and Cal more than either realize.
John of John is tender, sad, and honest. Both John and Cal learn how difficult it is to love your family while slowly realizing they may never understand you in the way you need.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how brilliant this book is.
Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC
The writing is so atmospheric that I felt I was being shown a relationship between a father and his son rather than being told about it. You can tell they care deeply about each other, but neither of them can speak plainly and the result is a deep seeded hurt. You can tell John loves his son, but not in a way that can reach Cal. What is hard to understand is that neither is deliberately unkind, it’s just that love is shown through work and silence rather than words or a hug.
The remote island setting is genius. It’s stark, beautiful and isolated all at once and amplifies the loneliness of both John and Cal more than either realize.
John of John is tender, sad, and honest. Both John and Cal learn how difficult it is to love your family while slowly realizing they may never understand you in the way you need.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how brilliant this book is.
Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
JOHN OF JOHN by Douglas Stuart is my favorite brand of melancholy. It contains an unforgiving atmosphere, a sense of dreary isolation, and characters that break your heart wide open. I admittedly am a super-fan of Shuggie Bain, also by Stuart, so I knew this one would hurt sooo good.
In JOHN OF JOHN, Cal returns from college to the Scottish island of Harris, where his father and grandmother begrudgingly cohabitate. Cal is gay and hiding his identity from his strictly religious dad, John, and John is harboring several secrets of his own. We follow Cal’s months at home, the relationships within his small, dysfunctional family, and his confrontations with the closely knit town he was raised in.
This book is about the relationship between father and son, which is full of conflicting dynamics - love, yes, but also cruelty, obligation, and a mutually inflicted loneliness. There is also a deep and abiding intimacy, despite the ways they hurt one another and the secrets they each keep. Stuart excels at painting portraits of enormously flawed parents and the children who love them in spite of themselves, in the way only children can. There are moments that make you shake your head and question everything, but also moments that make you want to cry with painful, fragile hope. This will be one of the best books of 2026 - thank you to net galley for the chance to read early and review.
In JOHN OF JOHN, Cal returns from college to the Scottish island of Harris, where his father and grandmother begrudgingly cohabitate. Cal is gay and hiding his identity from his strictly religious dad, John, and John is harboring several secrets of his own. We follow Cal’s months at home, the relationships within his small, dysfunctional family, and his confrontations with the closely knit town he was raised in.
This book is about the relationship between father and son, which is full of conflicting dynamics - love, yes, but also cruelty, obligation, and a mutually inflicted loneliness. There is also a deep and abiding intimacy, despite the ways they hurt one another and the secrets they each keep. Stuart excels at painting portraits of enormously flawed parents and the children who love them in spite of themselves, in the way only children can. There are moments that make you shake your head and question everything, but also moments that make you want to cry with painful, fragile hope. This will be one of the best books of 2026 - thank you to net galley for the chance to read early and review.
December 24, 2025
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!
After reading and loving Young Mungo over the summer, I was ecstatic to get my hands on an advanced copy of Douglas Stuart's new book, John of John. Taking place on a remote Scottish island, the story follows a twenty-something art school student, Cal, as he goes back home to help his ailing grandmother. He has no money or career prospects and little direction in his life, and also has to hide his sexuality from his very religious community. Although the plot is very thin, the glory lies in the relationships (particularly between Cal and his strict, hardworking father, John) and the layers of secrets that are slowly peeled away throughout the story.
Stuart has such a gift for witty and revealing dialogue, and his characters really come to life within their interactions with each other. The characters are so humanely rendered that there really is no villain or hero of the story; everyone was shown to be selfish, generous, pious, loving, hateful, deceitful, and gentle, all in turn. Even when I thought a character was beyond redemption, I was always steered back towards empathy in the end.
This is a solid 4.5 stars for me, just shy of five starts because I found the ending to be too abrupt and unsatisfying with it's vagueness.
After reading and loving Young Mungo over the summer, I was ecstatic to get my hands on an advanced copy of Douglas Stuart's new book, John of John. Taking place on a remote Scottish island, the story follows a twenty-something art school student, Cal, as he goes back home to help his ailing grandmother. He has no money or career prospects and little direction in his life, and also has to hide his sexuality from his very religious community. Although the plot is very thin, the glory lies in the relationships (particularly between Cal and his strict, hardworking father, John) and the layers of secrets that are slowly peeled away throughout the story.
Stuart has such a gift for witty and revealing dialogue, and his characters really come to life within their interactions with each other. The characters are so humanely rendered that there really is no villain or hero of the story; everyone was shown to be selfish, generous, pious, loving, hateful, deceitful, and gentle, all in turn. Even when I thought a character was beyond redemption, I was always steered back towards empathy in the end.
This is a solid 4.5 stars for me, just shy of five starts because I found the ending to be too abrupt and unsatisfying with it's vagueness.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for sending me an ARC to review. I’m looking forward to purchasing a physical copy once this releases, this amazing novel belongs in my home.
Douglas Stuart’s excellent third novel is a powerful story featuring queer love, complex family ties, coming of age and life on a secluded Scottish island.
John-Calum Macleod returns home to the island of Harris after failing to find work after art school. Cal moves back in with his father, John a religious sheep farmer and weaver and his grandma Ella. Cal struggles with transitioning from a freer life on the mainland to the conservative, rural life at Harris.
I loved this story so much. What an amazing, well plotted story. The characters and their story arcs are unforgettable. Stuart’s writing is so effective, the setting of Harris comes to life, I felt like I was experiencing the changes of the seasons along with the characters. The scenes vary from humorous, tense and heart wrenching. I can’t remember the last book I read that made me feel this range of emotions. This is essential reading in LGBTQ+ literature.
Douglas Stuart’s excellent third novel is a powerful story featuring queer love, complex family ties, coming of age and life on a secluded Scottish island.
John-Calum Macleod returns home to the island of Harris after failing to find work after art school. Cal moves back in with his father, John a religious sheep farmer and weaver and his grandma Ella. Cal struggles with transitioning from a freer life on the mainland to the conservative, rural life at Harris.
I loved this story so much. What an amazing, well plotted story. The characters and their story arcs are unforgettable. Stuart’s writing is so effective, the setting of Harris comes to life, I felt like I was experiencing the changes of the seasons along with the characters. The scenes vary from humorous, tense and heart wrenching. I can’t remember the last book I read that made me feel this range of emotions. This is essential reading in LGBTQ+ literature.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for an eARC of John of John by Douglas Stuart. John of John was the first novel I have read by Douglas Stuart, and I must say I am absolutely blown away. While plots dealing with familial drama and turmoil are usually not my thing, the characters inhabiting the community and surrounding the main character of Cal were incredibly rendered and fleshed out. I especially loved the complexity given to Cal's dad and grandmother; as the story progressed, their roles and influence on the plot increased and kept me glued. Every single character was shown to have flaws, wants, needs, and ultimately be redeemable.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Never before has a book left me speechless…I find myself reflective after reading this particular one. The dark, tragic beauty of this book is reflected in its characters, its landscapes, and in the shared, yet un-voiced secrets at its heart. It’s heart breaking, yet poignantly beautiful in a way that surprised me with its realistic look at the inner struggle of men in a world that is harsh to those that are different. For the first time that I can ever recall, I feel seen; truly represented in a book. This book is a master class in touching a reader’s soul. I have no other words.
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