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A Novel
by Douglas Stuart
Book Reviewed by:From the Booker Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo comes a vivid, moving novel following a young man returning to his Hebridean island home, a portrait of a father's expectations and a son's desires.
Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides to find that little has changed except for him. He returns to the windswept croft and the two pillars of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, tweed weaver, and lay preacher in the local Presbyterian church, and his maternal grandmother Ella, a profanity-loving Glaswegian whose steady warmth helped Cal weather the sudden departure of his mother.
Cal privately wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, while John is dismayed by his son's long hair, strange clothes, and seeming unwillingness to be Saved. But Cal isn't the only one in the croft house who is keeping secrets. As lambing season turns to shearing season, the threads holding together the community together become increasingly frayed, and nothing will remain as it was before.
John of John is a singular novel about duty, passion, and the transformative power of the truth. It is a magnificent literary work that cements Douglas Stuart's reputation as one of our greatest novelists working today.
a h-aon / one
Her feet were as purple as calf liver. That's what his father had said before he hung up. Cal had been standing in the red phone box at the bottom of the Meadows, watching the rugby players stretch on the lush green grass. Their white shorts clung to their haunches, and in the soft smirr the cloth became sheer and he could see the elasticated lines of their briefs. He was only half-listening as his father read from the New Testament.
His father had never been fond of small talk. This gave their telephone calls the feeling of a service line, like when you dialled the Speaking Clock and then reset your watch to it. When Cal mentioned this to his father, the truth of it made his father laugh, for John Macleod believed the spirit was indeed in need of constant calibration, and Cal made his calibrations every Wednesday at 6 p.m. prompt and twice again on the Sabbath.
He couldn't afford the long-distance call to the isles so they developed a signalling system where he would call ...
It’s June, and it’s therefore Pride month. Name a book you’ve enjoyed that features an LGBTQ+ main character
...44/chain-gang-all-stars Chain Gang All-Stars , by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/5206/john-of-john John of John by Douglas Stuart https://www.bookbrowse.com/search/index.cfm Whistler , by Ann Patchett I think it says a lot about the role of literature today that there are so man...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (5/21/2026)
...ar that the process is the largest contributor to the suffering of many of these individuals. There is always someone who will try to take advantage. John of John by Douglas Stuart is like a chilly embrace from a remote Scottish island. Stuart has created the most amazing characters and placed them in situations where they can't...
-Anne_Glasgow
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (5/14/2026)
...these families would be/are going through in today's economy with rising prices and the reduction in social welfare programs. Next up on the page is John of John by Douglas Stuart. I'm thrilled to settle in with this one. Based on all I know I'm going to love it.
-Anne_Glasgow
Book recommendation: John of John
...ks that you just can stop thinking about? For me, the first one of 2026 is https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/5206/john-of-john John of John by Douglas Stuart, which I read for review last week (which will publish in the May 6 BookBrowse Review ). Such a wonderfully nuanced character study of a man and his...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (4/30/2026)
...d in describing it I expected it to sweep me off my feet. Might be because https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/5206/john-of-john John of John by Douglas Stuart was just so fantastic that Kin pales in comparison. I'm currently reading Shelter Island by Jill Wisoff, also for the indie program. Fortunately, thi...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (4/23/2026)
...now Won't Be Long Now by Elizabeth Hardinger. Also, for review, I finished https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/5206/john-of-john John of John by Douglas Stuart. Wow, what a wonderful novel, probably my favorite of the year so far . If you like literary fiction, particularly novels set in remote Scotland and/...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (4/16/2026)
...y Jesse Q Sutanto, a fun, quick read. Currently reading https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/24694/john-of-john John of John by Douglas Stuart for review, and then I'll pick up https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/24292/wont-be-long-now Won't Be Long Now...
-kim.kovacs
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...continued
Full Review
(772 words)
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water and Cutting for Stone
John of John is gorgeous—the most satisfying novel I've read in a long time. The Western Isles of Scotland may be isolated, yet I could see, smell, hear, and touch these memorable characters, and get caught up in their world. Stuart's tale is soulful, tragic, comic, uplifting, and ultimately so very satisfying. Destined to be a classic. Ann Patchett, bestselling author of Tom Lake
To read John of John is to move to the Isle of Harris and take up residence in the family croft. The novel is so immersive, so all-encompassing, that I felt like I was living in it. Douglas Stuart has written something brilliant and rare. Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island and Brooklyn
Douglas Stuart's John of John has the emotional range and sense of sympathy as his earlier books, but this book is special, it has an urgency, an immediacy, a brilliant sense of place, the drama of fierce emotion repressed, concealed and volcanically exposed.
The protagonists of Douglas Stuart's novel, John of John, are John and Cal Macleod, a father and son who live on a croft (a small, rural family homestead used for subsistence farming) on the remote Isle of Harris in Scotland's Outer Hebrides. In addition to raising sheep, the men are among the many individuals on the islands who weave cloth in their homes, which is then marketed as Harris Tweed.
Sheep herding has been a primary industry on the islands of the Outer Hebrides (also known as the West Hebrides) for millennia; archeological evidence suggests the first sheep were introduced by the Vikings some 6,000 years ago. In addition to meat (lamb and mutton), the animals provide wool which in turn is handwoven into cloth—a ...
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