“Shuggie Bain” by Douglas Stuart (post 6): Modest Conclusion

Shuggie’s mental dissociation in the opening paragraph of the novel (see post 1) is never developed. His mother eventually dies from natural causes, after her history of dramatic suicide attempts.

Agnes’s last major suicide attempt may have featured a cardinal symptom of multiple personality, a memory gap:

“When Agnes awoke in the psychiatric hospital she had no memory of getting there” (1, p. 332).

Did she have no memory for getting there, because she was unconscious for the whole trip to the hospital? Or did she awake in the hospital from sleep due the sedative they gave her after arriving at the hospital “to keep her from clawing at herself again” (1, p. 332)? Indeed, did she actually remember cutting herself, or did she only know about it by inference, from the bandages on her wrists? The novel does not say.

The novel recognizes the problems alcoholism, poverty, and patriarchy, but if there is anything else to understand about Shuggie and Agnes, this novel is too modest to inquire.

1. Douglas Stuart. Shuggie Bain. New York, Grove Press, 2020.