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John of John

The instant Sunday Times bestseller from the Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain

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John of John

By: Douglas Stuart
Narrated by: Lorne MacFadyen
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The stunning new novel from the Booker Prize-winning, Sunday Times-bestselling author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo, read by Scottish actor Lorne MacFadyen.

An Oprah's Book Club pick

"Lorne MacFadyen narrates Stuart’s extraordinarily beautiful novel of love, secrecy, loneliness, and pride in a voice rich with the accents of the Outer Hebrides." Kirkus


Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry home to the island of Harris to find that not much has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal resumes his old life, caught between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella, who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for decades.

While Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As the seasons pass, everything is poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly entangled.

'This summer's bestseller' - The Times
'This book is special' - Colm Tóibín
'Passionate, liberating, and gorgeous' - Min Jin Lee
'Brilliant and rare' - Ann Patchett
'A masterpiece' - Elaine Feeney
'A fierce, glorious sting of a novel' - Lauren Groff

John of John is the heartbreaking story of a young man’s return home and how the bonds of family life are torn by the weight of expectation. It confirms Douglas Stuart as one of the great British writers at work today.

Editors Select Family Life Genre Fiction LGBTQIA+ Creators Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Small Town & Rural Heartfelt Thought-Provoking
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Critic reviews

John of John has the emotional range and sense of sympathy of his earlier books, but this book is special, it has an urgency, an immediacy, a brilliant sense of place, the drama of fierce emotion repressed, concealed and volcanically exposed. (Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island)
To read John of John is to move to the Isle of Harris and take up residence in the family croft. The novel is so immersive, so all-encompassing, that I felt like I was living in it. Douglas Stuart has written something brilliant and rare (Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake)
You finish the novel feeling emotionally enriched and slightly bereft at leaving its characters behind. Few contemporary novelists produce prose so vivid, generous and full-bodied . . . It is difficult to imagine this year’s Booker shortlist without it
Set against the stark beauty of the Hebrides, where the landscape, in all its colour and texture, is as alive and commanding as its people . . . No one crafts characters with the depth and precision of Stuart—John of John is a masterpiece (Elaine Feeney, author of Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way)
John of John is another mesmeric, transportive, vividly sensory and astonishingly textured novel from one of our greatest writers (Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other )
John of John is a fierce, glorious sting of a novel. Douglas Stuart has somehow lifted the rocky, windswept landscape of the Scottish Western Isles—as well as its externally stark and thwarted, if internally blazing, characters—and replicated both with utter flawlessness on the page. What an astonishing feat of literary fiction (Lauren Groff, author of The Vaster Wilds)
Stuart renders father and son — their whole community on the far side of nowhere — with the acuity of an anthropologist and the bittersweet sympathy we reserve for our dearest, most confounding loved ones
In John of John, Harris is a character in its own right. Stuart is masterful in evoking the landscape, culture and traditions of the place . . . I was captivated. John of John is Douglas Stuart’s most consummate work of literature to date (Nicola Sturgeon, Observer)
A superb example of what a novel can do . . . I'd give him another Booker right away
Douglas Stuart explores the visible and invisible chains of love forged between a parent and child — as each grapples with his respective faith and complex humanity. Stuart’s characters yearn and yield tenderly as they struggle with fate and free will. The inimitable world of John of John is passionate, liberating, and gorgeous (Min Jin Lee, author of Free Food for Millionaires and Pachinko, finalist for the National Book Award)
All stars
Most relevant
Loved it as always. Tire at my heartstrings at the lives of the characters living in a small village

John of John

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Narrator often sounded quite flat and bored , disappointed that it wasn’t Angus king , but story was good, not as funny as previous Douglas Stuart books but entertaining enough nonetheless

Read all of Douglas Stuart’s books and although it was no shuggiebain, still enjoyed it. New narrator took some getting used to

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I loved the authenticity of this story, including the accent and Gaelic spoken. The story was strong and the forces influencing the main characters’ behaviours and feelings were described well. At times, feelings of despair and hopelessness oozed out to be met with everlasting rays of hope the reader almost needed to find in himself/herself.

strong story

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What a brilliant book . The characters and settings were beautifully crafted . I found the whole story absorbing and hard to put down and wondered what would happen next . Unforgettable .

Hidden natures

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Loved the narrator, the characters, couldn’t stop listening. Fabulous!! Hurry up with the next one please.

Brilliant storytelling!!

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