Douglas Stuart has once again delivered a novel that feels emotionally bruising in the best possible sense. John of John explores masculinity, inheritance, addiction and working-class survival with the same devastating clarity that defined Shuggie Bain.

Stuart’s greatest strength remains his ability to write tenderness within brutality. Even in environments shaped by violence, poverty and repression, his characters remain painfully human.

The novel’s examination of fatherhood is especially powerful. Stuart interrogates the emotional damage passed between generations of men taught to suppress vulnerability.

There are passages here of extraordinary beauty. Stuart writes urban landscapes with almost lyrical intensity, transforming neglected streets and domestic interiors into spaces charged with memory and grief.

Importantly, John of John never romanticises suffering. Stuart understands the temptation many literary institutions have to aestheticise working-class pain, and he resists it throughout.

This is a novel about survival, but also about the cost of surviving within systems that repeatedly strip people of dignity.

One of the literary highlights of the year so far.

★★★★★