"Young Hugh " Shuggie" Bain is a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Shuggie's mother Agnes is Shuggie's guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion's share of each week's benefits on cans of extra-strong lager. Agnes's older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is "no right," a boy with a secret that all but him can see." -- page [4] of cover.