Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart with Kadiff Kirwan

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

This week's book guest is Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart.Sara and Cariad are joined by the incredible Kadiff Kirwan - star of Slow Horses and This Way Up - to discuss class, fishing, parents, vernacular and David Beckham's sarong.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss violence, sexual assault, neglect and childhood sexual abuse.Young Mungo is available to buy here.You can find Kadiff on Instagram @kadiffkirwan Cariad’s children's book The Christmas Wish-tastrophe is available to buy now.Sara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Tickets for Sara's tour show I Am A Strange Gloop are available to buy from sarapascoe.co.ukFollow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we've created the Weirdos Book Club.

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions.

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Young Mungo by Douglas Stewart. What's it about? It's a queer coming of age tale in 1990s Glasgow tenements torn apart by poverty and religious tension. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club?

Well, Mungo is an outsider due to his morality and his queerness. In this episode, we discuss class, fishing, parents, it, acting, vernacular and David Beckham Saurong. Joining us this week is Kedif Kierwin, an award-winning actor of stage and screen. You'll recognise him from shows like slow horses, This Way Up, and everyone else burns. Trigger warning, in this episode,

we do discuss violence and sexual assault, neglect and childhood sexual abuse. Welcome. Welcome, Kadeef. I've got my somber voice on. We've all got our somber voices. And let's just know you're wearing a serious polo neck jumper. It is, yeah.

Yes, I'm feeling very frangued. Very somber. Very somber. So Young Mango by Douglas Stewart, your choice of book. We very rarely let the guest choose book. We were so desperate to have you on the podcast. We know how busy you are with acting. Such a busy, talented.

We'll read whatever he says. He's incredible. He's so busy, so talented. We know he loves to read. He's at the National Theatre. He's in slow horses. He's got scripts to learn, lines to learn. He's developing stuff himself.

He's an incredibly talented. Act of our generation. So desperate to have you on. We're desperate to have it, mum. Kadeef, what have you read recently? What did you love? You decide, Kadiqadiv. Sorry, what's that, Kadiqadiv?

This book seems to be crying as I hold it. This book came with its own social worker, Cadiz. They delivered it to the door. Because there's a nice kiss on the front. You think how are lovely. But look at that gorgeous cover by Wolfram Tillman. My children.

My children, my daughter said, why, no, my son, actually, four years old. Why is a picture of Mummy and Daddy on the book? And I said, that's not Mummy and Daddy. Yes, it is. Mommy's got the sideburns. He said, that's not us. And he was like, that's not us. He was like, yes, it is. I mean, it is such an arresting, incredible photograph.

It's called the Cock, brackets, kiss. And you said the Wolfgang Tillman, yeah, the brilliant German artist. So this is Young Mungo by Doug Stewart, who you may have heard before. He's the book of prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain. That was his first novel. This is his second novel that followed up quite quickly. Shaggy Bain took him 10 years to write. He was frustrated.

when Shaggy Ben got rejected, so then he wrote this. So they sort of were both written before he won the book up, which is amazing. Correct, yes. Correct. Oh, I didn't know we were getting tested. Tables of turns. So, Kedeefe. Firstly, are you a big reader?

I wouldn't say I'm a big reader. I read a lot. I would say I'm a big reader because I have to read so much just in our industry. We read so much. So when I do get the chance to really sit and enjoy a book, it's like, oh, it's euphoric. Yeah, yeah. Something just washes over you. like this book did.

I mean, I had to scrub myself after. But I do like reading. I just don't get to do it for enjoyment as much as I'd like to. Yeah, when you're picking up. I read a bad scripts. Yes.

A lot of great scripts. But do you get time to read in between shots filming at work? Or do you try not to because it's too distracting? No, I try to, but then you sort of like an idiot. Not any, like, because other cast members are like

getting involved and having jokes and feeling jovial. I feel really guilty about not being present. Yeah. And taking myself. out of the world because I want to like, what's the goss? What's going on? You do like the goss. Who do you fancy in the crew?

Oh my God. Look at Harry. Over there. Look at those shorts, Harry. You got, girl. I was in a show with Kadeve a long time again. My TV debut. Was it your TV debut?

Was it your TV? I mean, I think Kadee's probably taken up his CV, but it was. And it was like Kayla Cole in the pilot as well. Kayla Cole was in the pilot. Ellis James. Ellis James. Elis James. And Richard, of course, Ricky Whittle.

Adam Kay. Adam K, the biggest. selling also in Britain wrote it with... Dan Shreimer. It was the first time I was around like actual really, really funny people who could just come up with stuff on the fly. Like you, Carriad, Mike and Ricky Whittle,

I was like, Jesus Christ, how do I keep up? You're so funny. How did you find young Mungo? How did it find its way to you, this book? Was it recommended? By the image. Oh! I'm a huge Wolfgang fan.

And when I saw that this was licensed for this because this isn't the original cover. It's an arresting photograph, isn't it? So arresting. And then Kadeef. And it's a kind of book that if you are reading, because I've been reading it at work, young mungo.

People want to talk to you about it. They want to talk about Shaggy Bain. And if Shaggy Bain has made them wary of reading Young Munger, not because it's not an incredible writer, but because of subject matter. And then other people who read Young Mungo stopped at a certain point. That thing, you know, like Joey and friends putting the book in the freezer.

Oh, yeah. Having to freeze it for a little while. I'd like to bury this book. Yeah. And call a priest. To forgive me. And everything happens. Everyone knows Douglas Stewart.

Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. Have you, did you read Shaggy Bain? I'm reading it currently. I'm reading it currently. I am indeed. Oh, interesting. Because I heard, yeah, so we both hadn't read Shaggy Bain. It's my sister's favorite book.

Yeah, I was scared of how much I would feel. Yeah, I'm saying, I slightly avoided both of them because I thought, oh, they look really intense. Why are you afraid of your feelings? Come on, come on. We like, we like books that have feelings. That's a really, good question. The trouble with a really, really, really good writer. Yeah.

is that it feels so real, you can't do that thing where you go, I'm being told a story. No, you're upset for that person. You're completely submerged it. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I understand that. But I think another reason why they spoke to us because I'm one of those people. I tend to go from what I see rather than what I hear.

And I'd rather go into something. I think I know what that thing is rather than someone telling me what they think it is. So someone goes, oh, my God, it's really sad. I'm like, I'll be the disorder, is that? That's good. Yeah. Yeah. I tend to not be swayed by stuff.

like that. Sad in the same way. So, young manga. This was sad, though. Oh my God, was it sad? I have the neglect. You're talking about neglect. We've got stopped off.

Neglected children. I just, I struggle with it so much because you can't help and you can't save them. And it's not like we're talking about something made up. I think it's got maybe worse, speaking for both of us or speaking myself since I've had kids. So when you're reading about kids being, it becomes really like too upsetting. It just feels so like, you feel like, they can't do anything for themselves. I guess it's maybe having. a recent reminder they just can't do anything so you are at the behest of your home environment

yeah your carers security the carers and the lack of it and so mungo's world is so real he's about a kid called mungo uh living in glasgow he has a alcoholic mother two siblings two siblings a sister and a brother and um i don't know this is a spoiler obviously he sort of realizing he's gay yeah in this world which it is not okay to be gay and that's quite that's a big part of the storyline as well. And it's described on the back as I'd say like there's a queer love story. I read a lot of stuff saying queer love story.

I would argue with the words love and story because I would argue, a queer tragedy? It's a love story. Renaissance tragedy level of like how it's what he puts these characters through Kadeeb. But what do you, for instance,

I don't think the queer love story is the story between the two boys. Oh, okay. It's a love story of someone finding self is what I think. Oh, that I like that take, yeah. So learning to love themselves as a gay person. As a gay person, but also, like, the boy that goes into the lock isn't the boy that comes out. No. No.

No. No, no. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And the boy that waves his mum off at the start. Yeah. And then the one that's in that final scene in the calf. Fucking hell.

At the side of the road isn't. So I think it's sort of. So it really is coming of age as in his boy to man. What kind of adult are you going to be? Yeah. Or you forced to be. based on other people's decisions. There's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a,

there's a, early in the books, so again, this is no spoiler, there's this incident, you know, when we're sort of moving back through time, so follows his brother and they're, they're bashing up. Is that the right word, sort of, smashing up her builder's yard, stealing some stuff, ruining some stuff. And that's where we're being shown who he is as a boy, which is surrounded by violence, trying to cope. He cannot help his goodness.

When someone is hurt, he's not going to leave them. His brother is like head of a Protestant gang in, Glasgow. And he's so scary. It's so terrified. Like proper gangster level. If someone like that is in your immediate family, someone violent, you are trapped with them. Yeah.

You're the person that if they want to lash out, they lash out. And his father who is dead was also renowned for his violence. And so the son, the Hamish, has kind of inherited this gang culture. Well, he's adopted the sort of the thing of like the head of the house. I'm going to be the person that the women and my brother can lean on. It's so toxic and so... Scary. Such a display of what one thinks manhood is and has to be.

And it's funny because he's described as like he's quite small, he wears glasses and kind of, to counter at that, he's made himself even more scary and violent. No one dares cross this man. Like they're terrified. And he has a gang. And yeah, there is a storyline they go and attack this builder's yard, sort of for the sake of it.

And it's so interesting because I was reading it thinking, how can this not be true? Because even the detail, about how they need to do it twice a year. Yeah. So the builder's yard, they have the insurance. Yeah, it kind of works out for everybody. That's where they get their new equipment.

And so it's sort of, yeah, it's just, it's a habitat. Yeah. So you've got certain animals coexisting with other animals. And as long as they only do it twice a year, they go and have this horrendous, horrible fun. And then it's done. Yeah. But it's an introduction to who Mungo is,

which is he's in the wrong world. Yeah, a boy gets injured and Mungo actually helps this boy, which is, means the police kind of catch them slightly and he, that's not what's done. No. You should leave the man, like, it's, you know, everyone for themselves. Leave the fallen soldier. Yeah, yeah. And his brother is furious with him.

He's like, now the police court asks because you slow down to help this guy get his arm out of a digger. Like, you shouldn't have done that. But we see, we immediately know Mungo is someone who will not leave a wounded animal. His, his, his, his sensitiveness is sort of a superpower and a plight that he's been blessed with. Like, it's the thing that's made him closer to his mother and his sister. but it's a thing that's distancing from his brother. Yeah. And it's the thing of like, people see it

and they can recognise it as something they don't want to be is what was felt. But actually, to have someone be sensitive in such an environment is such a blessing because they're not hardened by the structures of the tenement or the oppression that's in the air from Thatcher's Britain. You can feel it. Yeah. But it's sad, isn't it?

Because that boy he helps and doesn't even acknowledge him. No. And it's kind of angry at him. Because it's a weakness. I know. Yeah. It's the fear of like, you put eyes on me now.

Yeah, yeah. And I could have got out of this myself potentially. Yeah. And also you take away a man's ability to look after them. I know. Yeah. And you help them. The description of Mungo,

we know that he's very beautiful. Yeah. I know what that's like. But with a severe and tick, shockingly handsome. And the way that the tick is written about. Oh yeah.

Yeah. It's an internal thing and an external, what it looks like. So literally written all over his features is what, you know, anxiety, fear. He's scratching. It's cheap.

and also his cheek is moving. His sister also has a laugh. She can't stop. They all have these clearly stress-induced ticks. Ticks that they've developed from their environment. Yeah.

He's a fantastic writer. Like you feel like you were living in a tenement. I understand what the comparisons, because people do sometimes compare people to Dickens. Oh, it feels very Dickensian. Just because something's sad. But not because you go, oh, this is a historical document.

Yeah. The other people describing it as Dickens, it's like, it's so funny that, like, when a story's working class, Oh, it's very Dickens, isn't it? It's like, actually, it's just someone's reality. I think it's his level of description of characters. Was an observer.

Exactly. He didn't grow up in that environment. No, he did. He was super poor and worked in a factory. That's why he did Oliver Twist. Like, that's he. That was his. Yeah, yeah.

And his father went to debt his prison. Yeah. I actually had to Google him halfway through. Who, Dickens or Donald Stewart? Dickens. I always have to Google Dickens. What is he doing? Oh, God, brings a bell.

Dickens. Please, we're going to have some. Less? Less, fewer. Fewer. I had to Google Douglas Stewart. Did he grow up in this world? Glasgow. He grew up in Glasgow. This is his world with an alcoholic mother and his brother died when he was very young in an accent. The vibrancy of the characters. Oh my God. Right from the beginning of meeting, St Christopher and... Gallagate. That's evil man.

Gallagate. Horrendous characters I've ever encountered. But from the first descriptions of them, you have the... Awful. I'm laughing because I'm uncomfortable, guys. But he's such a horrible man. You have the brightness. Well, before anything. Yeah, they're very, they jump off the page.

They are so real. Well, his mom and the sister. Being on the bus. Yeah, the texture of their skin. Yeah. The way the tattoos are, the smell of them, all of those kind of things, the way they're sort of slumping asleep. They're so incredibly drawn, but the vibration of fear underneath it.

And they're on a bus. And I'm so scared. What they're going to do? What they're going to do? What is one with them? Why is it? Because there's a boy. It's horrible.

His mum and essentially the way that he leaves, this is all very at beginning. So if someone's listening thinking... This is the first chapter, literally. So this is scene setting. But right from scene setting, everything this book is about vibrates underneath. But what I had, because they keep...

So we know he's going on a fishing trip with these two horrendous men. Two men. We don't know the horrendous year. I will never forgive that man. And then it flicks back to life before. And what I found, pre-gallagate.

Pre-reading it, reading it. When I was reading a chapter, that was like before he went on the fishing trip. Very happy, very happy. And then you turn into next chapter and it would start and you're back in the bus. You're like, I don't want to go back then. I want to live in the land where you're not on the fucking bus mungo.

Like, I found it. My heart was like, to this. And he's 15. And actually, he felt much, much younger to me. He did, in me. Yeah. Yeah.

Especially amongst those men. Proper men. He really loved his mom. I think he's in love with his mother in the way that so many queer children become, like, like my mom to me was like, that thing of like the femininity is something that women are allowed to be. You look at it as a queer kid and you're like, oh my God, I love that thing. So what about the femininity, sort of softness?

The softness and the access to not policing one's emotions. Like, it's a space where you can be. Yeah. I think he saw that both in his mother and in Jody. Yeah. That thing of like they're free to just act how they are. Whereas he wasn't because he always had Hamish's viewpoint or their viewpoint of what he should be because of Hamish.

I think that's the thing. Yeah, I do. So, again, I grew up in a place very different to Glasgow. But we lived in an area where if you looked at another man the other way, you had to fight them. If they came over to a pool table and you hadn't put, you know, and they put 50p down, it was either, it's like, who's going to be the aggressor first? Wow. There was, again, a vibration of potential violence all the time. And maybe I'm exaggerating slightly.

I felt scared all the time and I was so fucking glad I wasn't a boy. because girls, it would have to be, something would have to happen. You would have to be up for someone's boyfriend or dad, you know. You had to do something. You had to cross the line. I know that there's some girls with big boobs who had an experience where just the way they looked

made other girls want to fight them. Oh, that's hideous. I wasn't blessed with it in that department, so I was safe. For you. And again, so I was grateful. I didn't have big boobs and that I wasn't a boy because the potential fear, I mean, it's primordial.

But it is, you know, that thing, attack is the best form of. defence. If you're going to look after yourself, you have to be that way. So the relief of women, I do understand. Yeah, yeah. Having female friends, even though that itself is a danger. Yeah. One thing, though I think it's a brilliant book, I didn't, I was looking for hope somewhere because like, there isn't, there is so much hope in it. There is, but you don't know what I mean? Like the mum is having a difficult time, Jodie's having a difficult time, the brother's having

difficult time, the brother's having a difficult time. But hope is the action of looking for happiness. Yeah. And actually, that is what the mum is. Yeah, the pursuit is there. Carrie had read this before I did, Kadiah. So she was messaging me. So what obviously I didn't expect, and I'm saying this for our listeners, what I didn't expect was to enjoy this book, and I did enjoy this book. When I started reading it, I did enjoy reading it. I think it's brilliant.

I thought his writing's brilliant. And I think it's important to balance that. Yeah. I felt the whole time I'm worried, the whole time, so terrified. What's going to happen? But for me, that is the, for me, when I was growing up, and for him, I feel that that is such the truth for queer kids growing up. Yeah, it's a fear that's constantly with you.

Yeah, yeah. That thing of the oppression of like, if I reveal who I am, everything is going to change. So it's, I think Douglas did an incredible job of keeping that tension for the reader in lots of different ways. That's such an amazing point. I did something yesterday with a woman called Paulette, who's a radio DJ in Sheffield, and she was talking about wearing wear. And so she was talking about it in terms of racism or terms of being a woman. but that if you have constantly, you know, from every direction,

had to be aware of behaviour or potential, how do you heal from that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hypervigilance, but it affects you forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was talking about her mum going back to Jamaica and being in a place for the first time where she couldn't see any white people,

and her body wouldn't let her not be scared. It actually found it uncanny. Yeah. Wow. Because the one thing her body would be telling her is, don't relax. It's really important. That's really, yeah.

And isn't that like a higher level of writing? You go, it isn't just, oh, I walked a mile in someone else's shoes. It's like, you felt the osmosis of emotion of what it might be like. You want to set throughout the dew on your own skin. Like when being at the being, oh my God, being at the lock. Are we going to get into this lock story? Okay. Feeling a writer telling you what's about to happen before it's happened,

the first time that Mungo shares a tent, you can smell embers. You know, you know, and that's the thing, it's like watching a horror film. Yeah. Mungo has been sent with two men. Strangers. We know they come from prison. They're from prison. The mum has sent him off. She met them at AA, didn't she?

We find out she met them at AA. And they put themselves forward to sort of. Take him for like a manned weekend. Yeah. To go fishing and show him out to make a 10. and build a fire. All the things that an absent father would have potentially done with that young boy. And they're wholesome pursuits.

Yes. If someone said to you, we're going camping. But because he's a kid from the tenement, like, he has no idea that this Scotland exists. That's lovely, actually. That's one thing I thought was lovely. Or the nature. The nature of, yeah. If he had known the words to describe it, he would have said he could smell the tang of the pine forest,

the bright snap of bogmertle, vech and gorse, and then underneath it all, the damp musk of dark fertile soil, the cleansing rain that never ceased. But to Mungo, it was green and it was brown and it was damp and it was clean. He had no words for it. It just smelled like magic. And I thought that was...

It's incredible writing. Also, a writer can do both things. You can give a language to who doesn't have that language. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Isn't it just amazing? At its genius level. This is a spoiler. Talk about the lot.

It may be triggering. Yeah, it's very triggering. To be talking about a sexual assault. I felt angry at Douglas Stewart that he would create Munger. and then do what he did to him. One of the most upsetting things I've ever had to read. Like, I wanted to throw the book across the room.

These things do happen, and we should write about them. They do. Also, I think that's so hard to read. We do try because we're scared of monstrous behaviour to understand monsters. This is young Mungo's story. I don't think we necessarily try, and sometimes things can happen to people. They are just evil. It's Mungo's impression of the person that's doing things to him.

as a chart, as a 15-year-old kid, he probably doesn't have that the access to the history of pain that Gallagator's cause but also has received. And I think he's just the vision of evil. The fearlessness in which he wrote and the fact that he was able to transport you there. Yeah, yeah.

Because this and worse is the reality for so many people, so many people that we won't even know and that we do know that, like, they've been brought to a point in their lives from something like that. Yeah, yeah. And like, I just love that. exists because

like I had to put the book down after that chapter it's devastating because it's more than reading it's an experience yeah you're there you're really there from something

it's going through it much more I think than if you were watching the power of books isn't it also it's that thing of like we've all fallen

so in love with manga at this point yes you care about him and you want him and also at this point when that happens the second storyline of him and James

you go oh my god he's got a friend he's got a friend And like, you know, for those who haven't read it, James is a local boy that he'd be friends from another tenement who's Catholic and he keeps pigeons. And it's the first time Mungo meets someone and he instantly knows that he's unusual as well. He's soft, isn't he? And he talks to him in the way, even the way he's holding the pigeons and the way he talks to Mungo. I also love that he wasn't sure if the comparison of him, is he this way because of his, from nature or because he's Catholic.

He didn't realize this is what Catholics would look like and talk like and what is it? It was so, the innocence of that was so beautiful. Catholics are really nice, maybe. Yeah, it's like, what? He's just like me. And it was him wrestling with those notions because he'd never spoken to a Catholic person in his entire life. I should say, talking about hope, like the storyline with him and James is very hopeful and very beautiful. Like the moment when they're, that brief moment when they're okay and they live in this little bubble and you, that I did think was amazing, like hanging out watching telly together.

I was so grateful for James's dad working away. Yes, okay. Same. Oh, look at these two boys. on the carpet. Having a nice job. But even Jones' sort of plan to escape, that is still an act of hope.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. There is something better. There is a better life. There is not being there. But also that thing of like, it's so rare that in a book you get a working class escape. Yeah, yeah.

People just don't get to escape. They don't get to dream about something else really, you know, especially on the queer spectrum. I think that's such a definition of class is that it's not feeling, you have a choice or anything better. It's just get given it. As in like your parents did this, so you did that.

You know, your dad was down the mind, so you're down the mind. Yeah. Your mum got married and just had kids and stayed at home, so that's what you do. And actually, that's where the hope exists is that there is something better. You deserve something better. You can be happier than your parents were. You can improve, you don't just have to just eat what life gives you. And that's what James is talking about, isn't it?

He's like, he wants to move to the by the sea, where you can sort of be yourself and no one will question you. because yeah and also the other template that's visible for him is Pauli Chick for Mungo you know another man on the tenement who is clearly gay and everyone thinks he's a paedophile

and he isn't yeah and they literally like pido on his door and he can't walk his dog in the day because people shout at him so much he has to live under such dress constantly yeah yeah there are terms of his

where he can where he can go when he can go to the shops he knows that you know if there are local kids they're going to throw things out him and they're going to, you know, every time he exits his house, he knows he's got to put an armour on or weaponise his queerness in a way that is, scares them or, or, it's, it's, it's just so sad. And I go, there's mongo's going, God, if I stay and I tell Jody and, and Mum and Hamish,

who I am, will that be my life? I really liked that even though he's very close to his mum and Jody, I mean, his mother's, you know, she's a whole lot of kettle of fish, but he's very close to Jody. and I really liked that he didn't offer Mungo Jodie would understand. Like Jody also says, I don't want you to be gay. And I thought that was a really,

gave that character such nuance because you're expecting, oh, the sister's cool with it and the sister is not cool with it because it's like at this point in time. It's dangerous to be gay. Yeah, yeah. I think it's difficult for families,

families to celebrate gayness, even if they are not, I'm going to say in vertical comments, homophobic. No, no, no. It's the vulnerability you put yourself into. And that's why they're like, hide it, don't do it, you'll grow out of it.

Yeah. Get a wife. Here's a knife. Go up a fight. Yeah. That's what is, that's what, because Hamish knows. Hamish has been like in his own gross, horrid, toxic way.

It's trying to give Mungo an armour. Yeah. Say like, just don't do it, mate. Just don't do it. Fight over here and you'll be all right. Yeah. Like this is, this is the option I've taken. Yeah.

It's safe. Even though it's so violent. It's so dangerous. It's safe. It's safer than what you're choosing. And that's really interesting. It's like this man who's covered in scars. like can't look after his baby

like just fights constantly and Hamish is saying to him quite clear-headedly this is safer than being gay in this environment that parallel between to be gay was to be sexually perverted yeah perverted which then meant you were lumped in with all perversions including

when I was growing up male teachers were doubted by people's parents because it's like why else would you be there as a woman's job that's a feminine oh god so we did queer theory at university which was so interesting in terms of... Thank you, Ellen Sinfield.

I was trying to show people who would probably unaware of what was going on in the 80s and 90s was that gay window advertising and gay people existing publicly, but in a cryptic way that straight people wouldn't have noticed. And we studied how David Beckham were in a sarong was a massive moment because it was a man saying you're allowed to look at me and I want you to look at me

and that had never been a safe thing for men to do ever. You don't... You're dressed in the same as other men. You wore things that. were an invisible uniform of I don't stand out. Just him, him changing his hair as much as he did as it was like, do you remember when metrosexual was a thing?

It was like, oh, metrosexual meant to have a man who cared. A man who like washed his face and moisture. He's wearing deodorant, guys. He's like, skinny jeans on. Yeah. You can see the outline of his leg. And this isn't to say that any of this has gone away. This is recent.

Yeah, yeah, got it. We're not 150 years old. This is our lifetimes. Yeah. And I think especially when you set a book pre-internet, and obviously as we grew up, some of us. Remember that world.

It's very interesting to go back where you can't find a community where literally the boy opposite your window is about the most community you can find if he's also gay. And you're not allowed to speak to him. You're not allowed to speak to him because he's Catholic. And like, no, that's what's going to get at.

Like the religious aspect of this book. And actually, it's not even like, they weren't even saying to Munger that your queerness is a sin because of like you're going to be a fire and brimstone. It's like, because we just don't want people to know. And it wasn't even, but yet their lives were dictated by the religion. It was such a difficult thing to reckon with.

Having to deal with there being no prospects. And like they talk a lot about that, don't know of like where to go. They've got no jobs. No jobs. They've got nowhere to go. The factories have been closed down. The steelworks are closed down.

They were supposed to be a job for life. There isn't. And they're just like sort of these like wasteland, barren wasteland of like industry that are just there. They're walking past them constantly. The reminder of like what used to be. But even when they were, were there, they weren't happy. It was just, they had a job, they had a purpose. And for the

difficulty, what that does, if that's your parents' generation, because there is then going to suddenly be basically like, sort of crumpled adults. Yeah. Yeah. Who, like the man who lives downstairs. Yeah. Oh, the man who lives downstairs. The man who lives downstairs and his wife, or she cooks for munger, and you can, he can hear the violence down there. Jody and him decide to knock on the door purely to interrupt the violence, but they have no way to stop it. To stop it. And the wife is like, go away, don't worry about it. And she's like crawling in the back. And then the husband's like, no, she just fell off a ladder.

Don't worry about it. And you're like, everybody knows. You're in these tenements. You're stacked one on top of the other. Everyone knows everyone's business. Yeah, yeah. They can see it, they can smell it. They can look out of the window.

Like, there's no escape. It's very, I thought he captured that claustophobia. Yeah. Really well where it's just like, you kind of have to, like, you have to leave. If you're going to be queer, you can't stay there, can you? Unless you said you live a life like chickie, which is like only going out at night time to walk your dog at like six in the morning. I know. But also, isn't it the, the tension of that scene with chicky and munger,

and you go, is he going to do something to, but how awful that, like, you go, oh, no, why? I think it's clever writing, because you are starting to view Chicky in the way the society is. He is, yeah. You are like, oh, maybe he's a paedophile. And you're like, well, why do I think that? He's just literally offering him a drink. It reminds me of in a catch, catch, catch,

there's a scene where a teacher who was kind to him at school lets him stay on his sofa and comes to speak to him as he sort of lying down on the, sofa and you get really worried but it's because the character isn't used to kindness so so of course they're worried you know adults are predatory you know there isn't a safe haven well not so Douglas Stewart has created a world where you know people aren't safe they don't do what they're supposed to do they don't mother they don't care they don't teach they are constantly negating their power and abusing it so it also the way he chose to phonetically write yeah i loved that I loved it.

The language and the accent and you're just so there. That was another thing I read that he, when he first, because a lot of it's written in Glasgow vernacular, that lots of agents were like, oh, there's no way anyone could read this. Like that was a lot of the rejections. And obviously he was like, but that's how they speak. He has lived in New York since his 20s as a fashion designer. But he says, I read an interview with him and he was like, I'm just in my heart is Glasgow. Like that is.

And they painted a mural of Shaggy Bain on one of the, and he was like, that's the greatest. thing that's ever happened to me. Like I am Glasgow, but he's had to live away. He escaped. He escaped. He escaped. Yeah, he got, I'm just, I'm so happy that Douglas exists. Have you met him? Do you know?

No, I haven't, but we follow each other on Instagram. And I am such a big fan, but also just the fact that he's been able to really put pen to paper and someone who had a completely different career and just the nose, the nose, the nose, just made him wait further for that, yes. And the fact that, like, we have this just as a queer book, as a piece of art that exists in the world, I'm so grateful for it. It was so painful to read this book. But I was so grateful because it reminded, my child was not like this at all, but of the fear. And it wasn't always like this.

I wasn't always discomfort. And I didn't always have the access to the language. And the fact that he's made this as a reminder that you can go back and go, look, this, this. this is what it used to be like. Yeah. And I just love that. People still having those childhoods. Exactly.

You know. Yeah, I think it's honestly, obviously I got very, I'm upset because it was so real to me. Say you liked it. Say you liked it. I did. Because I just found out you followed him on Instagram, which means he might listen. I hope he listens because, oh. I wanted to ask Gadif about your writing.

Oh, yes. Yes, yes. Oh. As someone who reads and appreciates, it's really good, appreciate it's really good writing. Yeah. Yeah, I'm writing a pilot currently. TV show with BBC Studios that will chronicle

parenting slash queerness slash who gets to be a parent who should be a parent and the notion of losing oneself to something that you love or the notion of losing oneself and that the love isn't pure and it's just like why can't I choose myself anymore

I'm choosing this other thing and it's funny it's queer it's based on some truth and some fiction and it's really exciting to write something like this because I genuinely believe like our generation like Heartstopper exists you know and then there's a gap

then it's like Lewis or midsummer murders you know there's like this whole yeah there's a gap I think between like 26 and like 40 there's this like where you're made to make all these life decisions when you don't really know what you're doing and stuff like there's a gap in the market of like

just who's you're like catering for this and because we have access to like tech. Isn't she because so Nell Frizzell wrote a book called The Panic Years because she said, why isn't there a name for? And I think it's maybe because it's all questions and no answers. There's this big bit of like what is going to happen? What am I going to decide? What am I in control of?

It's almost like you can't talk about it because it's not answers. That's the thing. Yeah. That's literally the notion of the show. It's like there aren't any answers. There's just experience and find, trying to find, and trying to just. keep hold of something. And it's, yeah, about these two friends from uni who made a decision back then at

uni that when they get to a certain age, if they don't, they'll do it together. Yeah. And then there are catastrophic events. It's like a comedy drama. Yeah, I think it's just, oh, I think it's great. Oh, that's brilliant. Because you've been writing for a long time, haven't you? Yeah.

I have. I've had like a bunch of commissions over the years and stuff, but it's like you'll make something that go, we love it. You've got no money to make it. It's like, you get it to talk. told me this two years ago when I started or, you know, I think this is the most, the closest I've gotten to thus far of like my own work being made because I'm surrounded by so many wonderful people, you know, Ashling B, our mutual friend. I got to be script editor on

this way up, which I was in with her and just, oh, thank you. That was me fishing for a compliment. Well, this way up managed to do it all, didn't it? It's heartbreaking, brilliant acting. It's so funny. Totally. And I thank that show for bringing Ashling into my life. Like, as hard as it was to make that show because it's drawn from so many things in life and she's just the best but seeing people like Ashling and Michaela and Phoebe and Daniel Lawrence Taylor

or yourself. You've got a good gang, haven't you? Because it's a good gang, Khadip. But making their own work and being in it and I was like, do you know what? People have asked me constantly to do it and I was like, yeah, I am going to do it

in a real sense. What's nice is having those friends that I can just call and go, I'm really struggling with this bit and like Michaela, for instance, be like, oh, well, I'm writing currently. She wants to come around and we can just sit in the same room and write at the same time. Wow.

Just being around someone who is writing. Yeah. Sometimes we're like, not just somebody's writing. Michaela Cole. It's like, oh, that's a very handy person. Yeah. Like, Michaela will forever just be like my little sister, even though she's one year older than me.

Like, it's so brilliant seeing like how she just is a force of nature and how people are finally responding and reacting to her in the way they should. like she's the second coming of course. Oh yeah you can't watch her for a second without being obsessed with her you're like okay there you go I'm in love with Baccaulton I remember doing crims and talking to her about this little show she was doing called Chewing Gum

at like the National and she was like yeah it's going quite well and I was like guys sounds really great and then like wow yeah like what what an incredible talented person I mean Chewing Gum was amazing you're in chewing gum as well I was in chewing gum as well yeah she's amazing we were doing a play at the National

at the time and she was right to chewing gum for TV. She'd just done the one woman version at the national and then um channel 4 e4 well they wanted to adapt it and then she was like there's a couple of parts like you might wrap for you do an audition i was like audition yes i will yes, yeah and just that working with friends is just the most incredible thing could thank you so much thank you for choosing this book because we wouldn't have read it by ourselves never read it never read it yeah i'm really happy you talking about it has made me appreciate it even more I think you should purchase this book as a stocking filler for lots of your friends.

My God, it's incredible. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. I love this podcast, nice. It's fantastic. I'm a Wido Book Club member now. Yeah, you are.

You're in the club. Thank you for listening to The Weirdo's Book Club. Sarah's novel Weirdo and my nonfiction book, You Were Not Alone, both out in paperback now. And my children's book, The Christmas Wish Tastrophe, is also available. Great for a stocking, guys. You can find out all about our upcoming books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram. I'm at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading us.

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