The stunning novel from the Booker Prize-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo. SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2026 SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR FICTION AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK 'You finish the novel feeling emotionally enriched and slightly bereft at leaving its characters behind' - The Sunday Times 'This book is special' - Colm Tóibín 'Passionate, liberating, and gorgeous' - Min Jin Lee 'Brilliant and rare' - Ann Patchett 'A masterpiece' - Elaine Feeney 'A fierce, glorious sting of a novel' - Lauren Groff Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry home to the island of Harris to find that not much has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal resumes his old life, caught between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, weaver and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella, who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for decades. While Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, John is dismayed by his son's long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As the seasons pass, everything is poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly entangled. 'Stuart's most consummate work of literature to date' - The Observer 'Intimate yet epic in scale . . . enthralling' - The Guardian 'Miraculous . . . This beautiful story of literal and metaphorical homecoming is wholly satisfying' - Daily Mail 'A capacious, ambitious novel, both swiftly readable and genuinely profound' - The Daily Telegraph 'A superb example of what a novel can do . . . I'd give him another Booker right away' - The Scotsman 'Told in beautiful, thoughtful prose that transports readers to lives and locales they will never know' - Financial Times 'Douglas Stuart at his best . . . Reader, hold this masterpiece in your hands and feel yourself forever changed' - The Mirror

Portrait

Douglas Stuart was born and raised in Glasgow. After graduating from the Royal College of Art, he moved to New York, where he began a career in fashion design. Shuggie Bain, his first novel, won the Booker Prize and both 'Debut of the Year' and 'Book of the Year' at the British Book Awards. It was also shortlisted for the US National Book Award for Fiction, among many other awards. His second novel, Young Mungo, was a number one Sunday Times bestseller and his third, John of John, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker and his essay on gender, anxiety and class was published by Lit Hub.