Stuart has said he was inspired by fellow Booker Prize winner James Kelman, who won the 1994 Booker Prize with How Late It Was, How Late, which, like Shuggie Bain, focuses on working class families and is critical of capitalism and globalization.
Kelman is known for bringing raw, traditional Scottish dialect into fiction writing as a legitimate language. Stuart has expressed his admiration for this technique in Kelman’s work, as well as in the work of James Joyce, Agnes Owens, Alan Warner, and Toni Morrison.
Another influence of Stuart’s was Alan Hollinghurst, of whom he says: “I devoured every single one of his books when I was a young man. He provided a glimpse into these vibrant queer...
