BookBrowse Reviews John of John by Douglas Stuart

BookBrowse:

Booker Prize-winner Douglas Stuart's third novel revolves around a gay man who returns to his conservative, rural community in the Outer Hebrides.

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The main protagonist of Douglas Stuart's novel, John of John, is John-Calum (Cal) Macleod, a 22-year-old closeted gay man, a recent graduate of the Edinburgh College of Art with a degree in textiles. Although brilliantly talented and at the top of his class, he's unable to find a job and has been relying on the charity of friends ("surfing from one settee to the next, waiting for them to leave for work, so he could forage like a wood mouse, taking just enough food to sate his hunger but never so much as to get caught"). In his weekly phone call with his father, John, he learns that his grandmother's health is failing, and John insists that his son return to the family croft to take over her care. Although Cal and John have a contentious relationship and Cal dreads returning to the ultraconservative Presbyterian community in which he was raised, he's broke and starving, and so he reluctantly agrees.

Readers quickly learn that Cal is stepping back into a fraught family dynamic. His mother, Grace, left John when Cal was nine, and both men harbor deep resentments for her actions. Grace's mother, Ella, moved in to help raise Cal, but she and John despise each other. To make matters worse, Ella is the tenant of record for the croft and could choose to evict John at any time. Cal attempts to find employment, but little is to be had on the island, so John puts him to work tending the sheep by day and weaving Harris Tweed cloth by night (see Beyond the Book). "His father put all his faith in Presbyterian penicillin," the author writes. "For whatever ailed you there was only one cure: work and prayer." In his limited free time, Cal listens to music, helps his grandmother, and reconnects with his childhood friends. Over the course of the novel, he unravels the true story of his mother's departure and realizes his father has secrets of his own.

While the bulk of the narrative is from Cal's perspective, some chapters give us insight into other characters' thoughts as well. Those from John's point of view are particularly important, serving to soften his personality and explain why he's such a bitter man. While he's unlikeable on the surface, Stuart paints a nuanced picture of him that allows us to see him more sympathetically, and the conflict between Cal and his father comes across as both relatable and poignant. And the same is true of all the characters in this marvelous book; the author's ability to people his novel with such complex individuals is a highlight.

Stuart's descriptions of the island and its community as a whole are also nothing short of masterful, relayed in exquisite prose and vividly conveying the area's unique culture:

"The bay was empty except for the Macdonald boat. Cal recognized its flaking red hull from miles away. When his father was a boy, the bay had berthed a dozen trawlers. Now all the boats were gone and the slipway was slick with disuse. From a distance, [the fisherman] looked like a tin figure on a modelmaker's set."

Stuart writes with heartbreaking beauty of a disappearing way of life, as properties are purchased by wealthy absentee owners, the few children born to the islanders leave and don't return, and most can no longer make a living fishing, weaving, or raising sheep; even the area's lone church is dying, reduced to just 26 believers.

This is the context for some of the book's most important thematic questions. What does it mean to belong to a community—or, more importantly, to be excluded from it? Where does one's duty lie? Does one have a duty to oneself, and what happens when it conflicts with one's duty to others? Stuart also examines the damage that strict adherence to a religious code—one with no flexibility—can have on individual happiness; at one point, John declares that "You cannot show up for judgement and say: 'Yes, I sinned, but oh Lord, I was happy.'" These questions are probed with remarkable sensitivity; Stuart doesn't directly offer the readers any answers, allowing them to draw their own conclusions. At the end of the book, for example, readers are left to speculate if Cal will choose to stay on the island or leave to pursue his dream.

John of John is not a fast read; it's more the kind of book that one should savor for its language and its deeply expressed humanity. It may be Stuart's best work to date, and it's one that fans of literary fiction will almost certainly adore; it's an absolute must-read.

This review first ran in the May 6, 2026 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.