The following version of this book was used to create this guide: Stuart, Douglas. Young Mungo. Grove Press, 2022.

Douglas Stuart’s novel Young Mungo is written from the third-person perspective. Stuart utilizes the past tense throughout the narrative. While the story unfolds nonlinearly, this summary presents its events in a linear order.

Mungo Hamilton is a 15-year-old boy living in a housing project in Glasgow’s East End. His older sister, Jodie, comforts him when their alcoholic mother, Mo-Maw, disappears (their father died prior to Mungo’s birth). In moments of stress, Mungo develops a facial tic. As Mungo searches for Mo-Maw, he encounters his older brother, Hamish, who leads a Protestant gang. Hamish forces Mungo to accompany the group into a builder’s yard, where they steal and destroy equipment. The police arrive; Hamish injures a policeman to aid Mungo’s escape.

Several days later, Hamish visits Mungo and resolves to turn his brother into a man. As Mungo wanders the projects, he comes upon a doocot (a structure for housing pigeons). He meets James Jamieson, the 16-year-old who operates the doocot. James, unlike Mungo, is a Catholic. Mungo and Jodie soon find their mother working at a snack bar. Mo-Maw admits that she has found a new lover and that this has prevented her from coming home. Hamish, who lives with his girlfriend and young daughter, gives Mungo a knife with which to protect himself.

Jodie maintains an affair with one of her teachers, Mr. Gillespie. Because he is married, they often travel to a remote caravan to have sex. James begins to teach Mungo about pigeons. He tells Mungo that his mother died and that his father is often away; James hopes to leave Glasgow soon. When Mungo returns home, he finds his intoxicated mother. Mo-Maw dotes on Mungo but criticizes Jodie for her perceived arrogance. Mungo sleeps, almost naked, beside his mother.

Hamish and Mungo steal a car and drive to the ocean, where they trespass on the grounds of a castle. Mungo fights off a watchman. Hamish later sets fire to the stolen car. Mungo visits James and meets his unfriendly father. That night, Mungo comforts James as he cries about his mother. They hold each other in bed. The next day, James appears distant. Mungo speaks with Mr. Calhoun; he is an outcast because neighbors view his apparent homosexuality as an abomination.

Mo-Maw expresses worry about Mungo and confesses that she wants to get sober. They attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting together. Mr. Gillespie impregnates Jodie and soon abandons his teaching position. Jodie tells Mungo about the affair. She implores him to punch her stomach in an attempt to end her pregnancy. Mungo finally obliges. Eventually, Jodie receives an abortion.

Mungo visits James at the doocot and convinces him to bike to a random, faraway place. They lie in the grass together at a pond, where they kiss one another. James recalls the chatline where he sometimes talked to other gay men. His father discovered these calls and, ashamed of his son, commanded James to find a girlfriend. Mungo and James spend several blissful and romantic days together, flirting and exploring one another’s bodies. They discuss leaving Glasgow when Mungo turns 16. James visits the snack bar, where Mungo introduces him to Mo-Maw.

James, determined to please his father, keeps up an occasional romance with a neighborhood girl named Ashley. Mungo accompanies James to a park, where James kisses Ashley in front of him. Ashley and her friends later ring the intercom of James’ apartment to tell him about Ashley’s feelings for him. Mungo observes James’ father proudly watching the interaction. Jodie soon reveals to Mungo that she has been accepted to a university and will be moving out. Hamish tells Mungo that he must join him in an upcoming brawl against a rival Catholic gang; if Mungo does not join in, Hamish will burn the doocot with James inside. When Mungo tells James about the fight, James berates him for agreeing to such violence.

Hamish, Mungo, and the gang of Protestant youths fight against the rival Catholics. During the violence, a young man brutally beats Mungo. When Mungo returns home, he finds a widower from the projects in bed with Mo-Maw. The next day, he packs his bag to leave Glasgow. Mr. Calhoun encourages him to pursue his own happiness. Mungo meets James at the doocot and they decide to leave the following day. Hamish sees the boys lying together and attacks James, nearly killing him. Hamish tells Mo-Maw and Jodie that James has been molesting Mungo; Mungo denies this. At an AA meeting, Mo-Maw tells two men about Mungo’s situation. The men then offer to take Mungo on a fishing trip.

Mungo and the two men take a complicated series of buses to a faraway loch. One of the men, St. Christopher, is old and disheveled; the other, Gallowgate, is lean and fashionable. They drink heavily and tell Mungo that they will teach him masculine skills. At night, they share dirty stories and reveal to Mungo that they were in prison. Gallowgate sleeps close to Mungo in their shared tent. The next morning, Mungo accompanies Gallowgate into a small town to buy more alcohol. Mungo calls his mother from a phone booth and tells her that he wants to come home. That night, the men get Mungo drunk. St. Christopher enters his tent and forcefully molests him. Gallowgate deceitfully comforts Mungo and then violently rapes him.

The next morning, the men act as if they have done nothing wrong. When Gallowgate returns to the small town, Mungo notices that St. Christopher is partially blind. He tricks the man into falling in the river and then drowns him. When Gallowgate returns to the loch, Mungo feigns attraction towards him. In the morning, Gallowgate finds St. Christopher’s body. He believes that the old man accidentally drowned. He and Mungo sink the body into the depths of the loch. Gallowgate then attempts to drown Mungo; Mungo stabs him with the knife that Hamish gave him. Mungo returns to Glasgow and finds his siblings and Mo-Maw at the snack bar. After Mungo’s phone call, Mo-Maw had alerted the police. Mungo, however, pretends as if nothing has happened. He sees James across the street, exiting the hospital. The police soon arrive and say that they have found a body in a loch; the loch matches the location where Mo-Maw told them that Mungo was fishing. Hamish tells the police that he is Mungo. James, meanwhile, beckons for Mungo to join him.