Growing Up Gay: Reconciling Queerness and Boyhood in Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo, a Queer Bildungsroman.

Few literary genres better capture the complexities of boyhood than the bildungsroman, which traces a young protagonist's development alongside his attempts at societal integration. In the genre's queer iteration, particularly the gay male bildungsroman, boyhood becomes further complicated by the tension between masculinity and queerness. This article examines how Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo (2022) challenges conventional representations of queer boyhood by situating its protagonist within a working-class Glaswegian environment shaped by economic precarity, sectarian violence, and rigid gender norms. Unlike classical bildungsromane, where boyhood culminates in successful integration, Young Mungo suggests that queer survival often necessitates escape. By framing boyhood as a process continually obstructed by societal forces, Stuart's novel highlights the way queerness, class, and masculinity intersect to complicate normative developmental trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]