Saint Agnes’s Lament
Christian Lorentzen: ‘Shuggie Bain’, 3 December 2020
“... novel, ‘I owe everything to memories of my mother and her struggle.’ The American cover has a black and white photograph of a boy and a woman in bed, their foreheads touching in a maternal embrace. (On the British cover, a boy sits on a post that looks not unlike a cross.) Much of the story is excruciating, and it is in a long line of books with trauma as ... ”