Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the island of Harris to find that little has changed except for him. He returns to the windswept croft where he grew up and the two pillars of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, tweed weaver, and lay preacher in the local Presbyterian church, and his maternal grandmother Ella, a profanity-loving Glaswegian whose steady warmth helped Cal weather the sudden departure of his mother.

Cal privately wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, while John is dismayed by his son’s long hair, strange clothes, and seeming unwillingness to be Saved. But Cal isn’t the only one in the croft house keeping secrets. As lambing season turns to shearing season, everything seems poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly frayed, and nothing will remain as it was before.

John of John is a singular novel about duty, passion, and the transformative power of the truth. It is a magnificent literary work that cements Douglas Stuart’s reputation as one of our greatest working novelists.

Praise for John of John:

“To read John of John is to move to the Isle of Harris and take up residence in the family croft. The novel is so immersive, so all-encompassing, that I felt like I was living in it. Douglas Stuart has written something brilliant and rare.”—Ann Patchett

“Douglas Stuart’s John of John has the emotional range and sense of sympathy as his earlier books, but this book is special, it has an urgency, an immediacy, a brilliant sense of place, the drama of fierce emotion repressed, concealed and volcanically exposed.”—Colm Tóibín

“In Scotland’s Hebrides islands, a closeted gay man returns home to an insular community of sheep farmers and weavers, where complications and secrets await . . . The central question of the book,  facing all the main characters, is whether it’s possible to inhabit the place one calls home as one’s genuine self. Stay or go? Life or death? With his gift for creating vibrantly specific characters and settings, Stuart again taps profound human truth.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“John of John is a profound and unflinching exploration of masculinity, sexuality, faith, and the haunting weight of heritage on the human soul. Set against the stark beauty of the Hebrides, where the landscape, in all its colour and texture, is as alive and commanding as its people, this novel delves into paternal silence, love and loneliness, and the unsettling sense that we are never truly unwatched. Written in timeless prose, it speaks with urgent relevance. No one crafts characters with the depth and precision of Stuart—John of John is a masterpiece.”—Elaine Feeney

“This is literary phenomenon Douglas Stuart’s finest novel yet, and that is saying something. Stuart stacks achievement upon achievement like stones on a towering cairn: he infuses his narrative with an authentic understanding of the essence of Hebridean identity; he creates a novel that has the grandeur of classical literature but the readability and relatability of a contemporary masterpiece; he brings to life a most astute understanding of individual psychology, community relationships, and everyday living in a geographically and culturally distinctive place. The novel weaves its generous, impassioned, transfixing way towards a breathless and unpredictable conclusion. Epic and intimate, this is the kind of novel that enlarges your very capacity for empathy.”—Kevin MacNeil

“Breathtaking, life affirming, transcendent storytelling. John of John shows Stuart to be a true and abiding talent.”—Kiran Millwood Hargrave