Praise for John of John:
AN OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK
A New York Times Novel Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026
A Washington Post Book We’re Looking Forward to in 2026
A Los Angeles Times Most Anticipated Book of 2026
A Time Most Anticipated Book of 2026
An Oprah Most Anticipated Book of 2026
A Vogue Most Anticipated Book of 2026
An Elle Most Anticipated Book of 2026
A Kirkus Most Anticipated Book of Spring 2026
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2026
A Goodreads Most Anticipated Book of 2026
A Publishers Weekly Most Anticipated Book of the Year
A Service95 Most Anticipated Book
A Daily Mail Most Anticipated Book of Spring 2026
Finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Instant National Bestseller in Canada
A People Best Book of May 2026
“Powerful and surprising . . . [A] moving, suspenseful, completely-worth-your-time new novel . . . John of John is a stick of dynamite waiting to go off in your hand, the steadily intensifying story of a fractured trio . . . Stuart is not just a very good writer but an immensely skilled storyteller . . . one of the many pleasures of John of John—a title that eventually blossoms to reveal about five different meanings, all interesting—is that Stuart doesn’t let on until the very end whether he is writing toward hope or toward tragedy. Until he reveals the answer, he wants you to stay in the room with these difficult people, to try to puzzle them out, to watch them wage impossible struggles, and to wish them well.”—Mark Harris, The New York Times Book Review
“When Stuart won the Booker Prize for Shuggie Bain, the jury chair called his debut novel ‘a moving, immersive and nuanced portrait of a tight-knit social world, its people and its values.’ That’s an apt description of his third novel too . . . Stuart renders father and son—their whole community on the far side of nowhere—with the acuity of an anthropologist and the bittersweet sympathy we reserve for our dearest, most confounding loved ones.”—NPR, “12 New Titles Coming in May”
“A muscular narrative with scrupulous technique. It’s his finest work yet . . . Stuart’s prose is gorgeous and his plotting strategic; nothing is lost . . . John of John is one of 2026’s literary triumphs; Stuart ups his game with fluency and confidence, all the more gratifying given his working-class background—no nepo baby, he. As he observes of John Macleod’s liturgies: ‘When he read the Gaelic scripture, the damning words always transformed into something lyrical, beautiful, incantatory.’ The same can be said of this generational talent.”—Hamilton Cain, The Boston Globe
“Douglas Stuart brilliantly weaved a layered, compelling and yet so intimate a story of identity, what it means to belong, and the courage to claim your own truth.”—Oprah Winfrey
“The novel feels like a textured and affecting response to an early question posed to Cal: ‘Who do you belong to?’”—New York Magazine, “8 New Books to Read This May”
“I love this book so much.”—Alan Cumming, Interview
“An autodidact novelist’s new book is his best work to date . . . A sprawling, emotionally rich saga that extends Stuart’s investigation into masculinity while sketching a world in which his gay characters come fully, finally alive. It’s his best yet.”—Vulture
“From the mega-talent who gave us Booker winner Shuggie Bain, this striking queer coming-of-age story is set in a Scottish village of sheep farmers and weavers. Home from art school to help his family, Cal Macleod thinks he’s the only one with a burning secret. He could not be more wrong.”—People’s Best Books of May 2026
“A work overspilling with vitality . . . Like the warp and weft of a beautiful garment, John of John achieves a deft balance between detail and drama, sadness and comedy . . . You finish the novel feeling emotionally enriched and slightly bereft at leaving its characters behind. Few contemporary novelists produce prose so vivid, generous and full-bodied. I suspect John of John will resonate profoundly with readers—and it is difficult to imagine this year’s Booker shortlist without it.”—The Sunday Times
“A reprise of the parable of the prodigal son and an ardent exploration of the half-lives of queer men condemned to love, pine and suffer in silence. Intimate yet epic in scale, it contains equal parts pastoral drama, tale of familial fracture, love story and inquiry into various forms of loneliness . . . Diehard romantics will find much to love; I see Cal, John and Innes—knottily entangled and imperfectly endearing—being cherished with readerly devotion.”—The Guardian
“An emotionally potent story about a young man grappling with his sexual identity and the push and pull of family.”—Washington Post, “19 Books We’re Looking Forward to in 2026”
“[John of John] really proves Stuart is a first-class talent . . . It’s a tale of culture clashes, of the crushing weight of family expectation, of hardscrabble lives on the weather-battered Western Isles, and secrets, so many secrets. The volatile, sometimes violent, father-son relationship is explored with skill. It’s an incredibly touching, surprising novel.”—The Times (UK)
“Douglas Stuart, the award-winning author of Shuggie Bain, returns with John of John. ‘I began writing this novel in 2019 in the long wait for Shuggie Bain to publish,’ he wrote on Instagram. ‘I spent sixteen weeks living on the Outer Hebrides with only the faintest idea that I wanted to write about inheritance and duty about the complicated love between a father and son. It was a trip that has forever changed my life.’ The story follows Cal, a broke art school grad who returns home to the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. There, he lives with his father John, a lay preacher, and his maternal grandmother, Ella, as he navigates how his father’s expectations clash with his own desires.”—Town & Country, “The 21 Best Books to Read This May”
“John-Calum McLeod, or Cal, returns to Scotland’s Isle of Harris after attending art school in Glasgow and finds it difficult to coexist with his father, also named John, who disdains everything about him. John McLeod Sr. expects Cal to attend the strict local church and work at the family’s weaving shed. While Cal resists this parental rigidity, the two do share something fundamental that threatens their community’s long-held foundations.”—LA Times, “10 Books to Read in May”
“When struggling artist John-Calum Macleod returns to his parents’ home on the Isle of Harris, he finds himself at odds with his preacher father. But as their lives crash together once more, he discovers that his father may also be keeping secrets. From the author of Shuggie Bain comes a tender tale of isolation and self-discovery that tackles the complexities of faith and identity with refreshing vulnerability. Douglas Stuart may just be our new king of drama.”—Chicago Review of Books, “12 Must-Read Books of May 2026”
“John of John grapples with all the usual themes of a Douglas Stuart novel—intergenerational trauma, substance abuse, religion, masculinity—but, in contrast to the bleakness of Young Mungo and Shuggie Bain, is shot through with tenderness, hope, and love.”—Dazed, “9 of the Best New Books to Read Spring”
“Strands of affection, hope, disappointment and loss between friends, lovers and relatives on Harris are knitted together . . . Told in beautiful, thoughtful prose that transports readers to lives and locales they will never know.”—Financial Times
“John of John takes us, literally and metaphorically, to very different places. In fact, in my estimation, it leaves Shuggie Bain in its shadow—a feat many would have thought impossible . . . John of John is Douglas Stuart’s most consummate work of literature to date . . . Stuart is masterful in evoking the landscape, culture and traditions of the isle of Harris.”—The Observer
“From its early pages, Douglas Stuart’s John of John compels readers to contemplate how truths are often more painful than lies. The Scottish landscape may be backdropped with dour grey skylines, but the novel’s scenes shine brilliantly. For generations, the Macleods wove tweed and wool on the family loom, transforming plain fabrics into vibrant creations of dazzling color. Stuart does something similar, swirling a sentimental palette of stunning prose . . . The last quarter of the novel is impossible not to read in a single sitting and feels like it might’ve been penned by Thomas Hardy. The gripping finale is loaded with unexpectedly poignant moments that underscore the central tenet of the book: The truth is transformative, and the scars left by honesty are mere scrapes compared to the wounds from living a lie.”—Washington Independent Review of Books
“Stuart showcases his impressive gift for characterization in this perceptive and propulsive story of a tight-knit community of Gaelic-speaking sheep farmers and weavers on the remote Scottish isle of Harris.”—The Millions
“It’s evocative, devastating and full of heart, with Stuart’s signature way of making you want to read a single sentence again and again.”—Elle, “Most Anticipated Books of 2026”
“Themes of desire and duty, inheritance and duty are woven as expertly as the tartan John produces, and Stuart’s gift for descriptions often feels miraculous.”—The Daily Mail
“Stunning . . . Another devastating story that got under my skin in the very best way.”—Good Housekeeping
“Epic . . . [Stuart] beautifully evokes the urgency and despair of a quotidian life.”—Time, “Most Anticipated Books of 2026”
“Stuart returns to the emotional fault lines he handles so well—family, masculinity, desire, and the pull of home—by following a young man who goes back to his island birthplace and into the unresolved tensions between himself and his father.”—Oprah Daily, “Most Anticipated Books of 2026”
“John-Calum Macleod, a recent art school graduate, returns to his family home in Scotland’s Hebrides Islands to care for his ailing grandmother—and learns the bigger task will be facing family secrets, past relationships and a father at odds with his son’s queer, liberal transformation.”—The New York Times, “32 Novels We’re Excited About This Spring”
“In John of John, Stuart is at the height of his formidable storytelling powers . . . What Stuart pulls off in the full expression of this very particular and specific father-son love story—leaning into the ugly resentments and nonetheless tender, generous ties of two tortured men—is a heartfelt feat of the highest literary order.”—Amy Lyons, Chapter 16
“Douglas Stuart has done it again. I thought I was prepared for the quiet, beautiful devastation of Booker Prize-winning author Douglas Stuart’s third novel, but I wasn’t quite ready for all the threads he managed to weave into this latest tale. While touching on many of the same themes as Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo, John of John trades the industrial grit of Glasgow for the harsh beauty of the Scottish Western Isles. The pastoral setting only enhances a storyline that’s just a tad bit slower, quieter, and imbued with the harsh and unforgiving elements of the islands themselves. Stuart has never needed help when it comes to crafting characters who feel real, but his gift is further elevated by actor Lorne MacFadyen’s performance, which perfectly captures the desperation and restlessness of the characters, their community, and the island they call home.”—Michael Collina, Audible Editors Pick
“Douglas Stuart didn’t set out to write the great gay Scottish novel, but he’s now written three of them. The Booker Prize winner follows up his modern classics Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo with a third, quietly devastating act, John of John.”—Interview
“The deeply personal new novel is already becoming one of the literary sensations of 2026 . . . John of John is already cementing itself as one of the defining novels of 2026 and further strengthening Douglas Stuart’s reputation as one of contemporary literature’s most celebrated voices.”—Parade
“Douglas Stuart’s best novel yet . . . With the publication of his third novel, John of John, we’re running out of superlatives . . . With John of John, Stuart makes the case that there are many species of love that dare not speak its name. After all, such muted affections are often the strained ligaments that hold a family together. As a friend tells Cal, ‘Everyone says it’s harder to leave. But it’s much harder to stay.’ Everyone says it’s harder to write a great tragedy, too, but it’s actually much harder to write a great story of happiness, of people learning at last how to love one another honestly, which, somehow, is what Stuart has done.”—Ron Charles
“A vivid family drama . . . As he explores the emotional battles of his characters, Stuart succeeds in shaping a story that devotes careful attention to the tangible quality of existence in this remote, barren but ruggedly beautiful place . . . Alongside its well-fashioned plot, the immediacy and freshness of its carefully carved sentences—which brim with acute observations and occasional sharp humor—make John of John a joy to read.”—Bookpage
“In the contemplative, reverberating novel John of John, the outwardly simple family dynamics of a religious Scottish family are questioned and reevaluated.”—Foreword (starred review)
“An immersive experience . . . Seamlessly, relationships are revealed, secrets divulged. As always, Stuart’s prose is a joy to read and get lost in. He conveys both the beauty and the isolation of the Hebridean setting while illuminating the lies we tell ourselves in order to cope.”—Booklist (starred review)
“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)
“Booker Prize winner Stuart is in peak form, telling this story with an evocative sense of place, precise and complicated characterizations, and laugh-out-loud humor. Even when characters act their worst, their vulnerabilities and humanity shine through, making the tragedy of their decisions more poignant. A triumph.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“Booker Prize winner Stuart showcases his impressive gift for characterization in this perceptive and propulsive story of a tight-knit community of Gaelic-speaking sheep farmers and weavers on the remote Scottish Isle of Harris . . . Stuart’s deeply humane character work extends beyond father and son to their neighbors, including a sensitive middle-aged bachelor who belongs to John’s book club and cries while discussing Wuthering Heights. Stuart continues his winning streak with this brilliant novel.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A modern masterpiece . . . Stuart builds an absorbing, deliciously melodramatic story around the contrast between modernity and the old ways . . . Stuart’s every observation is profound; the simplest phrase is memorable for its beauty. Intriguing in its particularities but timeless in wisdom, John of John offers hope that relinquishing shame creates freedom to be true to oneself. It’s irresistible and an instant classic.”—Shelf Awareness (starred review)
“In John of John, Stuart shifts the landscape but not the intensity. Set in Scotland’s remote Hebridean islands, the novel follows a young man returning home, confronting a family bound by silence, expectation, and deeply rooted tradition.”—WAMC Northeast Public Radio
“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
“Like Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, Douglas Stuart explores the visible and invisible chains of love forged between a parent and child — as each grapples with his respective faith and complex humanity. Stuart’s characters yearn and yield tenderly as they struggle with fate and free will. The inimitable world of John of John is passionate, liberating, and gorgeous.”—Min Jin Lee, author of Free Food for Millionaires and Pachinko, finalist for the National Book Award
“John of John is a fierce, glorious sting of a novel. Douglas Stuart has somehow lifted the rocky, windswept landscape of the Scottish Western Isles—as well as its externally stark and thwarted, if internally blazing, characters—and replicated both with utter flawlessness on the page. What an astonishing feat of literary fiction.”—Lauren Groff
“John of John is gorgeous—the most satisfying novel I’ve read in a long time. The Western Isles of Scotland may be isolated, yet I could see, smell, hear, and touch these memorable characters, and get caught up in their world. Stuart’s tale is soulful, tragic, comic, uplifting, and ultimately so very satisfying. Destined to be a classic.”—Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water and Cutting for Stone
“John of John is another mesmeric, transportive, vividly sensory and astonishingly textured novel from one of our greatest writers.”—Bernardine Evaristo
“John of John is a phenomenal achievement—an honest and profoundly moving love story that radiates empathy for a cast of unforgettable characters. It’s easily one of the best novels I’ve read in years.”—Patrick Ryan, author of Buckeye
“John of John—oh wow, this novel. What was left to say about fathers and sons, really? Stuart finds all of the things that need to be said about family and home and who we are and says them in ways you won’t ever want to shake.”—Miwa Messer, Publishers Lunch
“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
Awards and Praise for Douglas Stuart:
Shuggie Bain
Winner of the Booker Prize • Winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction • A New York Times bestseller • Finalist for the National Book Award • Finalist for the Kirkus Prize • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize • Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel • Finalist for the L.A. Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction • Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Young Mungo
Finalist for the British Book Award • Shortlisted for Scotland’s National Book Award • Shortlisted for the Polari Book Prize • Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence • Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award • Longlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award • A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
“Young Mungo seals it: Douglas Stuart is a genius . . . He’s capable of pulling the strings of suspense excruciatingly tight while still sensitively exploring the confused mind of this gentle adolescent trying to make sense of his sexuality”—Ron Charles, Washington Post
“We were bowled over by this first novel, which creates an amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love. The book gives a vivid glimpse of a marginalised, impoverished community in a bygone era of British history. It’s a desperately sad, almost-hopeful examination of family and the destructive powers of desire.”—Booker Prize Judges, on Shuggie Bain
“The crafted storylines in Young Mungo develop with purpose and converge explosively, couching all the horror and pathos within a tighter, more gripping reading experience—an impressive advancement, in other words, from an already accomplished author.”—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
“The tough portraits of Glaswegian working-class life from William McIlvanney, James Kelman, Alasdair Gray, and Agnes Owens can be felt in Shuggie Bain. . . This overwhelmingly vivid novel is not just an accomplished debut. It also feels like a moving act of filial reverence.”—James Walton, New York Review of Books
“The body—especially the body in pain—blazes on the pages of Shuggie Bain. . .The book would be just about unbearable were it not for the author’s astonishing capacity for love. He’s lovely, Douglas Stuart, fierce and loving and lovely. He shows us lots of monstrous behavior, but not a single monster. . . The book leaves us gutted and marveling: Life may be short, but it takes forever.”—Leah Hager Cohen, New York Times Book Review
“[A] bear hug of a new novel . . . Stuart oozes story. Mungo is alive. There is feeling under every word . . . This novel cuts you and then bandages you back up.”—Hillary Kelly, Los Angeles Times, on Young Mungo
“Shuggie Bain is a novel that cracks open the human heart, brings you inside, tears you up, and brings you up, with its episodes of unvarnished love, loss, survival and sorrow.”—Scott Simon, NPR’s “Weekend Edition”
“Stuart, with great subtlety, builds up an aura of tenderness in the relationship between helpless Shuggie and his even more helpless mother . . . By drawing Agnes and Shuggie with so much texture, he makes clear that neither mother nor son can be easily seen as a victim. Instead, they emerge forcefully; they are fully, palpably present.”—Colm Tóibín, Bookforum, on Shuggie Bain
Reading Group Guide
Guide by Paula Cooper
1. John of John begins in a solitary red phone box in Edinburgh as Cal Mcleod is summoned home after four years in art school by his strict Calvinist father, John. While Cal’s postgraduation life in Edinburgh sounds bleak, returning to his sternly pious father after a taste of modernity and freedom is less enticing still. Did you question his decision to return home to Harris? Would you, in a similar situation, have stayed in Edinburgh?
2. The Isle of Harris presents a hypnotic but severe backdrop of hard stone, dark skies, scabbed hillsides, and black tar roads that impact the mood of nearly every scene. Yet, as traditional Scottish home weavers, John and Cal see the world in vividly distinct color. How did John and Cal’s shared—and deeply sensitive—reckoning of color stack up against an otherwise cold, difficult relationship?
3. Doll’s self-assessment is brutal. Speaking of the girls he knows from the island, he says, “They look at me like I’m a life sentence.” Being the only Macdonald son, he is the darling of his mother’s eye but is sentenced to life at the croft, and on the boat. Being tied to land you will never own and will die poor trying to keep seems a heavy burden to bear in an emptying village. Can you think of a comparable familial or professional scenario now, thirty years on in the United States?
4. Throughout the story, the characters’ relationships are partly defined by the use of Gaelic vs. English. This usage can indicate intimacy, remove, respect, exclusion, or ownership, and Gaelic cloaks the cruelty of the scripture with its beauty and rhythm. When the characters slipped out of Gaelic and into English, or punctuated English usage with Gaelic, how did you feel? Were you surprised to discover which characters ultimately understood Gaelic?
5. Once back at the family croft in Falabay, Cal is abruptly faced with a present littered with unresolved conflicts and relationships from his childhood, including the decades-long fallout of his father’s closeted homosexuality. While the reader is let in on this secret early and steadily throughout the story, Cal doesn’t realize until the end that his father has been in a relationship with their close friend and neighbor Innes since before Cal was born. What did you make of Cal’s blind spot as you moved through the story?
6. It’s easy to imagine that Cal’s escape to Edinburgh for college would lead to a carefree sexual emancipation. However, he is still a product of his strict Calvinist upbringing and part of the generation that sees the horrific rise of AIDS. Despite the complicated nature of homosexuality in Cal’s era, he still briefly considers coming out to his father on the car ride home. Conversely, John doesn’t even have the vocabulary to define his lifetime of loving another man, let alone the self-acceptance. How did you square these divergent points of view as father and son separately try to navigate their sexuality? Have you ever experienced a comparable generational challenge?
7. Cal’s college debt poses a financial burden beyond John’s imagining. When the daunting past-due bills and credit card statements are heaped on their kitchen table, John says, “I was thinking we could take on more sheep.” That simple statement sums up not only the slender margin of survival in the crofts, but also the tectonic collision between waning subsistence living on the remote western islands and the explosion of excess and spending in 1990s mainland Scotland. How did that societal and cultural clash strike you?
8. Water is a towering character in John of John: the sea in which Cal never learns to swim; the unrelenting rain the islanders stoically endure but from which they never seem to catch their death of cold; the narrative power water has to characterize people, like John, “a tireless tide,” or Innes, “who was never pushy, but he had the quiet determination of water—he could flow around a thing, coming at it gently, insistently, until he got his way.” How did the author’s use of water to set so many moods and drive so many plot lines shape the story for you? What about our relationship with water is so affecting?
9. On the day of Cal and John’s Sabbath fight over Cal’s hair, Reverend Rose delivers a sermon that focuses on wickedness and fear. But the reverend also intuitively understands that his captive congregation already polices itself—through shame and petty retributions meted out by neighbors. Do you think John clings so fiercely to scripture because it casts its net universally—and blindly—when compared to the more personal judgment of his community? Which mechanism for control do you think is more powerful?
10. Women are typically held to a higher standard than men in failed marriages with children, judged much more harshly for leaving them behind. Grace’s departure is handled carefully in John of John, even buried under the gross tonnage of John Mcleod’s flaws and relentless self-flagellation. Did her discovery of John’s secret justify her departure to you? If yes, did that opinion change when the nature of her departure—involving young Cal—was revealed?
11. Early in the story, the Macleods’ bellwether ram, traditionally the leader of the flock and symbolically a figure that portends future events, comes down with the fluke—a severe liver infection—and is put down by John. Likewise, the lambing season, which traditionally represents renewal, starts out disastrously with the loss of several lambs under cruel circumstances. These are viewed as especially dark omens. Did the symbolic subtext of the sheep affect your internal experience of the novel as you moved through it, or even quietly predict elements of the story?
12. In a touching passage in the kitchen of the Macleod croft, Ella transforms a threadbare sheet from the laundry tub into a ghost costume. Cal then quietly fashions the sheet into a Greek goddess’s robe, which he fits perfectly to her body. What did you make of Cal and Ella in this scene? What did it reveal about their relationship?
13. John is frequently unable to differentiate between his core identity and his behavior, as though being gay were comparable to being a thief or a cheat. His enduring love for Innes, his ability to see Innes’s goodness and kindness so clearly without assigning the same wickedness to him that he does to himself is one of the book’s greatest contradictions. Why do you think John can accept Innes’s homosexuality in a way he can’t accept it in himself? Could you imagine him ever being able to express himself differently in another setting or set of circumstances?
14. Did John’s affair with Anndra in Tolsta come as a surprise? What did it reveal about John that you didn’t otherwise sense?
15. Doll’s drinking, his sexuality, and his death are left largely unresolved. While Doll was notoriously unlucky in love with the girls in Falabay, Isla seems to intimate that Doll’s drinking was connected to his shame over having sex with Cal. Cal could also never quite discern whether Doll didn’t or couldn’t love him. What did you make of Doll’s alcoholism, his sexuality, his death? Do you think his drowning was an accident?
16. Given the darkness that lingers behind many of the relationships in John of John, Cal’s friendship with Isla feels like a breath of fresh air as they fall into the easy rhythm of old friends reunited. And yet, Cal’s thoughts are surprisingly harsh when she becomes pregnant. Was it off-putting when he admitted to himself that he thought her more of a slut for sleeping with a stranger three times instead of just once, even though he’d said earlier, “If you have sex, be safe, but, also … get shagged rotten”? How did you experience this aspect of their friendship? Did it feel revelatory about wider community morality and judgment?
17. In the final scenes of John of John, there is a clarity and generosity of Cal’s spirit. Everyone, at one time or another, must face the kinds of complicated truths that can lead either to a re-rendering of the hurts and resentment of our loved ones, or a turn away from this to something new. How generous can you imagine being in Cal’s place? Would the relief of knowing why—so intimately in this case—John behaved as he did with Cal act as a counterbalance to any potential pain?
Grove Press
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