Discovering Douglas Stuart

Sometimes you run across something that strikes to the core, and that was my experience in reading Douglas Stuart's short story, "A Private View" in The New Yorker, April 12, 2026. It is the first that I've heard of him but am now exploring interviews and will be anxious to read his novel, "Shuggie Bain," about a young boy growing up in Glasgow, Scotland in poverty in the 1980s. "A Private View" repeats the theme of an alcoholic mother, though as an adult, gay male, and is a tender, intimate depiction of the character's relationship with his mother interspersed with his interactions with his disapproving partner. There is a surprise and abrupt reality-check in the middle of the story that is so smoothly and elegantly done, it had me go back and read it several times to see how it was done. A lovely story that left me connected to the narrator and heartsick for his sorrow that will be ever-present in his mother's legacy.