Welcome to the Book Review Book Club! Each month we select a book to discuss with our readers. last month we read “The Year That Has Passed” by Caro Claire Burke.. (You can also find previous book club discussions In the book review podcast feed.)
At the beginning of Douglas Stuart’s new novel, “Journey of John,” the Booker Prize-winning author describes a strange irony: “What troubled him was that the closer he got to home, the more lost he felt.”
It’s a passing line, but it captures the tension at the core of this brilliant book: Here is the story of two individuals, each completely isolated, trying to figure out how to exist in a small, claustrophobic world.
The aforementioned traveler who is headed home and is scared is Cal, a young gay man who has recently graduated from college in Edinburgh and has been stumbling ever since. At the beginning of the novel, he is called back to the small village where he grew up to care for his sick grandmother. She obliges, but he is not happy with the move – a scrappy dreamer, Cal does not fit into the provincial life of his village. His main rival is his father, John. Traditional, religious and fanatical, John hates Cal’s flamboyance and inertia, and is determined to make Cal an upstanding citizen of this small community. But John is hiding secrets of his own that, if they came out, could put his life in danger.
Bouncing between the stories of John and Cal, “Journey of John” asks: What does it mean to fit in, what’s the risk of standing out, and what’s the price of both?
In July, the Book Review Book Club will read and discuss “John of John” by Douglas Stuart. We’ll be talking about this on the Book Review Podcast airing July 31, and we’d love for you to join the conversation. Share your thoughts about the novel in the comments section of this article by July 23, and we may mention your comments in the episode.
Here are some related reading materials to get you started.
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Our review of “John of John”: “‘John of John’ is a stick of dynamite waiting to be released in your hand, an ever-increasing tale of a broken trio – grandmother, father and son – who are barely held together by their diminishing ability not to say the words to each other that will tear them apart.” Read our full review here.
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Our review of Stuart’s previous book, “Young Mungo”: “‘Young Mungo’ has quirky greatness, as well as lapses and moments of cliché with the explanatory flatness of TV voice-overs. Still, blaming a novel of this register for intemperance feels like blaming an opera for being ‘too loud.’ The volume is part of the point. Sometimes you’re nervous. Often you’re delighted.” Read our full review here.
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Our review of Stuart’s debut novel, “Shuggie Bain”: “He’s lovely, Douglas Stuart, fierce and loving and endearing. He shows us a lot of demonic behaviour, but not a single monster – only loss. If he has a keen eye on brokenness, he’s even more keen on the unquenchable flicker of love.” Read our full review.
We can’t wait to discuss the novel with you. In the meantime, happy reading!
