It tells the story of the youngest of three children, Shuggie, growing up with his alcoholic mother Agnes in 1980s post-industrial working-class Glasgow, Scotland.

He lives alone in a boarding house in Glasgow, working shifts at a supermarket deli, and aspires to be a hairdresser.

Agnes desires a life of glamour, taking pride in her appearance, but her unhappiness drives her reliance on alcohol.

She manages to stay off drink completely for a year, during which time she meets a cab driver named Eugene, whom she begins to date.

The two of them move to a more inner-city neighbourhood, and Agnes promises to stop drinking, but unable to change their circumstances, their relationship becomes strained as Shuggie grows older.

Douglas Stuart wrote Shuggie Bain over a period of a decade, while balancing the demands of his successful job in fashion design.

[18] Later, the Picador imprint of Pan Macmillan published it in the United Kingdom first as a softback open market edition (OME) on 20 February 2020, and as a hardcover on 6 August 2020.

[19] By April 2021, rights had been sold for the book in 38 languages, including Dutch, Finnish, Georgian, Korean, Marathi, Mongolian, Portuguese, Serbian, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

[26] Douglas Stuart expressed a fondness for the photograph, saying that "it captures perfectly the fierce love that Shuggie has for his troubled mother".

[33][34][35] Writing in The Observer, Alex Preston said: "Rarely does a debut novel establish its world with such sure-footedness, and Stuart's prose is lithe, lyrical and full of revelatory descriptive insights.

"[36] Reviewing for The New York Times, Leah Hager Cohen wrote that "the book would be just about unbearable were it not for the author's astonishing capacity for love.

"[38] Allan Massie in The Scotsman noted that Stuart "hides nothing of the horrors of galloping alcoholism, but there is a gallantry about Agnes which commands respect and admiration, however reluctantly.

"[39] Michael Delgado of Literary Review described the relationship between Agnes and Shuggie as having "an overwhelming intensity of feeling," perhaps because it is so heavily drawn from Stuart's life: "Reading the details of it is like taking repeated abdominal punches, one for each time Agnes hauls herself onto the wagon and tumbles back off again.

"[41] Comparing the book to another of the year's Booker Prize shortlisted works, Real Life by Brandon Taylor, Shougat Dasgupta noted in The Hindu that both novels were "bound by a sense of dread and a groping towards love", and went on to describe Shuggie Bain as part of a "rich seam of contemporary Scottish working class writing."

[46] On 19 November 2020, it was announced as the winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, chosen by a judging panel comprising Margaret Busby (chair), Lee Child, Sameer Rahim, Lemn Sissay, and Emily Wilson.

[54] In his response, Douglas Stuart said: "I hope the mural inspires other weans to dream big with their creativity.