[3] Writing on Literary Hub about working-class living in the late 1970s and 1980s, Stuart notes that he grew up in a house without books and surrounded by poverty.

This was the time when Thatcher-era economic policies had "decimated the working man", moving industry away from the west coast of Scotland, leaving behind mass unemployment, alcoholism, and drug abuse.

[1] His first novel, Shuggie Bain, won the 2020 Booker Prize, chosen by a judging panel comprising Margaret Busby (chair), Lee Child, Sameer Rahim, Lemn Sissay, and Emily Wilson.

The book was praised for its authentic portrayal of post-industrial working-class Glasgow of the 1980s and early 1990s, and also for his capture of the "wry, indefatigable Glaswegian voice in all its various shades of wit, anger and hope.

"[5] Speaking at the Booker Prize award ceremony, Margaret Busby, chair of the panel, noted that the book was destined to be a classic, and went on to describe the work as a "moving, immersive and nuanced portrait of a tight-knit social world, its people and its values.

"[9] In a conversation with 2019 Booker winner Bernardine Evaristo on 23 November 2020, livestreamed as a Southbank Centre event, Stuart said: "One of my biggest regrets I think is that growing up so poor I almost had to elevate myself to the middle class to turn around to tell a working-class story.

[34] The book is a love story between two young men, set against the backdrop of post-industrial Glasgow, with its territorial gangs, and divisions across sectarian lines.

[38] Prior to its publication, it was described by Oprah Daily as "a beautiful novel about family love and the dangers of being different in a violent, hyper-masculine world",[39] and Kirkus Reviews concluded: "Romantic, terrifying, brutal, tender, and, in the end, sneakily hopeful.

[41][42] In November 2022, it was confirmed that Shuggie Bain was to be made into a television drama series, adapted by Stuart himself, to be filmed in Scotland and broadcast on BBC One and iPlayer.