Wednesday, April 15, 2026

A Private View, Douglas Stuart (The New Yorker)


 Although I did not read SHUGGIE BAIN, Stuart's breakout novel of a few years ago, it was widely reviewed and celebrated. This is a story of gay man going through an art exhibit with his mother.  He and his mother are from Glasgow but the museum is in New York where he now lives with his lover, a curator of the museum. Although his life has been difficult because of his mother's alcoholism, he is extremely forgiving and fond of her and trying hard to give her the good time she would want to have. This was a sad if lovely story. 

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House 

10 comments:

Todd Mason said...

Meeting people where they are, as one saying goes.

Anonymous said...

These days I'm avoiding sad stories. Reality presents enough sadness with the Iran War and Trump attacking the Pope.

Jeff Meyerson said...

He's "weak on crime"?

As Jimmy Kimmel rightly pointed out, he's the Pope, not Batman.

Moron. Yet, supposed Catholic convert Vance found a way to support Trump and attack the Pope.

Never read this one. I'm reading the new Jack Ritchie collection from Crippen & Landru, but I don't like the vampire stories nearly as much as his other stuff.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I wonder if I ever read a vampire story I liked?
Someone's has to get him out of there before he pushes a button.

Todd Mason said...

I find myself in much the same boat. Is this your comment, Patti?

Todd Mason said...

Well, for better or worse, vampires are not only metaphors for death and addiction and other disease, but also for rape (or, less unhappily, seduction). It's too easy for a writer to get lazy with that, or to misstep from the POV of any given reader. There aren't too many writers I can think of where my favorite work of theirs is vampire fiction, but I've liked at least some vampire stories by Joanna Russ, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, and others...I haven't tried to finish DRACULA by Stoker for decades.

Drumpf's whole life is about pushing buttons.

TM said...

Though it's less specifically Drumpf v. the current Pope, as the state of affairs where enough a percentage of US voters have ever found Drumpf worthy of their vote in any way...and have also managed to seat a Drumpf-compliant majority in the Congress and too many state ledges. And all the similar perplexes around the world, even if the defeat of Orban might help a bit.

Margot Kinberg said...

I like the museum theme here, Patti. And the family dynamics sound effectively done, too.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Yes, you could feel his love for his wayward mother.

TracyK said...

I need to start paying more attention to the short stories coming out in the New Yorker. I have a backlog of short stories there that I have intended to read. I will strive to remember to seek this one out, it sounds good even if it is sad.