Douglas Stuart’s devastating queer love story Young Mungo is being adapted into a new TV series
Douglas Stuart’s devastating novel Young Mungo is being turned into a TV series. (Getty/Simone Padovani/douglasdstuart.com)
Heartbreaking queer novel Young Mungo is being turned into a TV series by A24, the production company behind Oscar-winning phenomenon Everything Everywhere All at Once and Euphoria.
According to Deadline, the TV series will be adapted by the novel’s author, Scottish-American writer Douglas Stuart, best known for his award-winning literary debut Shuggie Bain.
Young Mungo centres around two young, working class teenagers living in nearby housing estates in rural Glasgow. Mungo is a Protestant, while James is a Catholic.
Mungo is growing up navigating the toxic masculinity entrenched in his local community and in his own family – particularly in his brutish older brother and local gang leader, Hamish. His relationship with his mother and sister, Jodie, is strained and complex, but he finds solace in the friendship he begins with James, a nearby neighbour who looks after racing pigeons in his dovecot.
Slowly, the pair fall in love in a tale of star-crossed, queer affection. As the story unravels, it’s clear that being gay is simply not an option in their hyper-masculine world, especially between a Protestant and a Catholic, when the battle lines between the two branches of Christianity are drawn so clearly.
Mungo is sent on a fishing trip by his mother, accompanied by two strange men that she has just met, in a doomed attempt to forcefully reaffirm his supposedly lost masculinity.
The aftermath is devastating, and Mungo and James’ hope for a future away from Glasgow is left in tatters.
Young Mungo received critical acclaim following its publication in April 2022, and was named book of the year by The Washington Post, Time, Reader’s Digest, The Telegraph and Vanity Fair.
Shuggie Bain received similar widespread acclaim, and the novel is already being adapted into a BBC production.
It’s not yet know when or on what network the Young Mungo adaptation will air, but the paperback edition of the novel comes out next month.
Other than Everything Everywhere All at Once, A24 is also known for controversial upcoming series The Idol and films including Oscar-winner Moonlight.
