Traces of the Queer Child in Shuggie Bain

Known as the winner of the 2020 Man Booker Prize, Douglas Stuart’s debut novel Shuggie Bain evokes childhood queerness, which is entangled in the deindustrialised urban landscape of 1980s Glasgow. Synthesising queer and trace theory in nine steps—disruption, bent temporality, materiality and embodiment, physical orientation, medium specificity, reading and bearing traces, involuntariness and the lack of motive, absence, and, lastly, ambiguity and story—, the present article argues that traces in Shuggie Bain are vital for the evocation of the queer child. Traces such as ghostly footprints; trampled grass; blood, saliva, and chlorophyll smears; and ripped clothing entangle the protagonists in their environment. The use of traces helps to transcend a single turning point of retrospection since the web of traces evokes nuanced changes in the protagonist’s embodiment.