How author Douglas Stuart’s journey to a remote Scottish island inspired ‘John of John’

[0:00] In 2020, Douglas Stewart won the Booker Prize for his debut novel, Shuggie Bain, [0:05] set in 1980s Glasgow about a boy caring for his mother struggling with alcoholism. [0:11] His latest novel, John of John, out today, follows Cal, a young man returning to his hometown on a [0:18] rural Scottish island and grappling with his identity, his religion, and his father, John. [0:23] Jeff Bennett spoke to Stewart for the latest episode of our podcast, Settle In. Here's a [0:28] clip of their conversation. Where did this story come from and did you know where John and Cal [0:34] were headed when you started? Yeah, I actually began this novel in 2019 when I was waiting for [0:41] my debut novel, Shuggie Bain, to publish. You know, I was filled with anxiety and I'd sort of taken my [0:47] fashion career and put it on hiatus and I was wondering if that was the right thing to do to [0:51] risk it on my dreams of becoming a writer. And so I was looking at my husband one day and I said, [0:57] I have an idea for a new novel I want to write, but I have to go to the Outer Hebrides. [1:02] And as a kid growing up in the inner city of Scotland, I'd never been to the islands. You [1:05] know, the Outer Hebrides are an archipelago of islands that sit off the northwest coast of [1:10] Scotland and they're absolutely stunning, but they're quite difficult to get to. [1:14] And so I think my husband was sick of dealing with my anxiety and he said, [1:17] 12 weeks away from me sounds like a great idea. And so he totally co-signed me going to the islands. [1:23] But I showed up on the islands in 2019 knowing only two people. And I was there, first of all, [1:29] for 12 weeks. And I just sort of traveled up the islands and got a sense of my own country, [1:34] a sense of the people. And I found that everybody was incredibly generous with their time. They [1:38] were curious about what I was doing, what I was interested in. And I fell in love with the place, [1:44] you know. I sort of journeyed up from, there's a very small island at the bottom called Vattersea, [1:49] and I went up about four to five islands until I got to the Isle of Harris, which is almost near [1:53] the very top. And when I got there, I realized that there was a convergence of fascinating things. [1:58] First, it's the last stronghold of Scottish Gaelic, the language. It is the sort of home of a very [2:05] conservative Calvinism. There is beautiful Harris tweed weaving. And then there's a crofting way of [2:11] life that's sort of dying, you know, a subsistence farming that is not so common these days. [2:16] And when I was on the island, I just thought, there is a story here. It's this wonderful, [2:21] almost lunar landscape, very rocky, quite barren. The elements are very wild. And I just thought, [2:28] oh, there's a story here. But I thought the story was about a young man who had gone to art school. [2:34] And in that wonderful moment we all have when we first leave home and we think we can expand and [2:39] become who we are going to be, my protagonist is actually called by his father and says, [2:43] you have to come home. Your grandmother's sick. And so he does the dutiful thing. He loves his [2:48] grandmother very much. And so he sort of puts his own life away and he comes home to the island. [2:53] And as soon as he gets home, he realizes his grandmother's in fine health. And so something [2:57] else is actually a foot. And I thought that was going to be the novel. But on my trip, when I was [3:03] on the islands, I was sort of sitting at a lot of kitchen tables, just meeting islanders. And I was [3:09] about five weeks into my trip. And I had heard frequently when I would go from settlement to [3:14] settlement, that there would maybe be an unmarried man or some bachelors in or spinsters in each [3:20] settlement. And I often asked, you know, why didn't they marry? Why weren't they interested in [3:24] marrying? And the answer would be often, well, they missed their moment for love. The person would say, [3:29] you know, there's a very short window and you don't meet so many people when you live so far away. [3:35] And, you know, they just missed their moment to meet that special person. And I've been listening [3:39] to that for some weeks. And I said just very casually, well, of course, some of them might [3:43] be gay and that makes it harder. And the woman I said, I said, oh, no, no, no, that's not possible. [3:49] And she was neither cruel nor homophobic. But for her, it was just not a thing she could imagine. [3:54] And I thought, oh, there's the novel. It's not really about the son returning home. It's about the [3:58] home he returns to and about the father and the grandmother who he's left behind, who couldn't quite [4:04] become who they were meant to be either. The novel gives us two points of view. You've got [4:08] John's, you've got Cal's. We understand each man completely, even when they're hurting each other. [4:15] Reading it, I thought to myself, this, I mean, you talk about the challenge. I mean, [4:19] that is a Herculean task to structure a book that way. Why that approach? [4:25] That's a great question. I think emotionally, first of all, you know, I didn't know my own father. [4:30] And I'd written two novels about a son's relationship with his mother and how that can [4:35] sort of change a life. And I went into this thinking I had wanted to explore what a love [4:40] between a father and a son was almost in a completely imagined way because I had no reference [4:44] in my own life. But I had been raised around a lot of men who would put a lot of energy into [4:51] avoiding the emotional truth. They would never speak about how they felt or what their own feelings [4:56] were in life. You know, they did the men that I was raised around did really difficult, dangerous [5:00] jobs. And I think if they started to talk about their feelings, then everything would unravel [5:04] because the very first thing you would say is, I don't want to go into a coal mine. I'm scared. [5:08] I'm underpaid. I feel undervalued. And so instead, in order to protect themselves and to protect [5:13] the families, they would say nothing about their feelings. And so the book becomes about that in a way. [5:18] They are sheep farmers and John doesn't express how he feels very much, but they love each other, [5:24] father and son. And a lot of the frustration is about the fact that they cannot communicate. [5:29] They can't actually say who they are and what they want and how the other lets them down. [5:35] Cal feels very much like his father wants to control them. And, you know, when masculinity is [5:39] expressed very narrowly, something that fathers do is they try to make sure their sons come out in that [5:44] image. And it's almost as a protective thing, you know, that your masculinity has to be tough and [5:50] macho and quite stoic. On the other hand, John, the father feels like Cal doesn't respect everything [5:56] he has sacrificed, everything he has built, that Cal looks at their home and their farm and their [6:01] croft almost like it's worthless and it's a bore and who would want to do this. And so in that sort [6:06] of misunderstanding, the men are trying to love each other. But, you know, the thing is, is it was [6:15] almost a sort of exercise in how, as a writer's exercise, in how claustrophobic could you make [6:19] this relationship? How could you take these two characters that almost know everything about each [6:23] other, but then won't say the things that are sort of closest to their hearts? And how far could I [6:28] push men together in that way? You know, they work and they worship and they eat together. They're [6:32] together all the time. And yet there's so much they're withholding. [6:36] And you can watch that full episode and all of our PBS News podcasts on YouTube or wherever you get [6:44] your podcasts. Support journalism you trust. Support PBS News. Donate now or even better, [6:53] start a monthly contribution today.