Shuggie: We don’t get a lot of time with Shuggie in these chapters, but what we do get is very significant. In chapter twelve, Catherine is trying her hardest to get Shuggie to cooperate and go to a gathering with his uncle and Donald Jr. Here he sees his father and Joanie Mickelwhite who gives him a pair of striped roller-skates as a gift, something his father is not that happy with. This leads to the Shug making the comment that Shuggie can’t be his which causes Shuggie to feel disillusioned with the roller-skates he was previously just happy with, something we saw earlier with his doll.

In chapter thirteen, Shuggie follows Leek to the slag. Here Leek checks in on him and even teaches him how to walk more masculine. He asks Leek if he’ll be able to come when Leek accomplishes his plans to which he gets a negative response. Things go awry when Shuggie is trusted to be the lookout. When Shuggie sees the watchman coming he decides to run away which leads to him getting stuck in the mud and forcing Leek to rescue him (Side Note: I found it very interesting that Shuggie REFUSED to go home without his wellies because he was petrified of Agnes’ reaction).

Chapter fourteen deals with Shuggie trying to assuage his guilt for leaving Leek behind. The book explains that not only does Leek have to go without his teeth for months, when they finally are replaced they fit poorly and give him sores. In an effort to relieve his pain, Shuggie always carried a piece of bread in his pocket for Leek to ball up and protect his gums. This chapter also sees Shuggie deal with his internal conflict. He doesn’t feel like the other kids so he doesn’t hang out with them, “It was just different, and so it was just wrong”.

The focus is not on Shuggie in chapter fifteen, but he says something to the nurse offhandedly which I hope is explored more, “So if your body doesn’t go to heaven, it doesn’t matter if another boy did something bad to it in a bin shed, right?”

Agnes: We get a lot more characterization of Agnes through chapters 14-16. In chapter fourteen, Agnes reveals that she’s actually very jealous of Colleen McAvennie who has a very close family structure and a man who is still with her (more on that later). Agnes even went as far as fixing up one of the girls’ hair like she would do with Catherine (who she misses), but Colleen reacted very poorly to this seeing it as another way for Agnes to appear better than the other women of Pithead. I think this envy and this direct confrontation is what leads Agnes to go to James McAvennie to ask him to help her make Shuggie more masculine. She offers money, which he refuses, but when he catches sight of the low cut jumper she’s wearing he initiates a sexual encounter with her, “I’m no saying there’s nothing ye can do for me“. This was supposed to culminate in a deal where James took Shuggie on a fishing trip, but James drives away leaving Shuggie on the curb that morning. The rejection causes Agnes to craft a plan where she’ll get drunk and reveal James’ infidelity to his family during dinner time. This plan is thwarted, though, by a huge argument breaking out between the couple where it is revealed James has been cheating with other women anyways. Completely distraught by his actions, Colleen breaks down in the street and Agnes rushes to her side in a rare act of kindness. She covers Colleen when she rips off her underwear and she stays with her until the ambulance came because it is insinuated that Colleen took something.

In chapters fifteen and sixteen, we see Agnes struggling with the death of her parents. For Wullie, she comes to the hospital drunk and with more alcohol in her bag. When she speaks to the nurse, she has an air of superiority about her presumably as a defense mechanism since she knows her father is dying. When she sees her mother, she gets some judgment for her current state and she promises to go to AA (a place Lizzie despises). Lizzie also offers her some sage advice, “Whatever it takes, Agnes, keep going, even if it’s not for you, even if it’s just for them. Keep going”. She is scarred by the news her mom tells her about her half-sibling but barely has time to sit with it as her mom kills herself a month later. At her mother’s funeral, she’s on her best behavior. She makes sure her mother looks exactly as she would like to look and she makes food for the attendees that she knows will please them. Chapter sixteen ends with Agnes trying to talk to Catherine on the phone, but was rejected again.

• Wullie: In chapter fifteen, we learn that Wullie is dying of cancer (perhaps something that has been plaguing him for a while). He is mostly unresponsive throughout the chapter and up to his death. He only shows that he is still alive when Shuggie enters the room. The most important part, though, is when Lizzie reveals that when Wullie returned from war and saw that Lizzie had a baby with someone else he made the baby disappear and continued to live his life with Lizzie.

• Lizzie: She is struggling massively with Wullie’s sickness. Lizzie decides to tell Agnes the story of the baby because she finally recognizes, “… I was harder on you than I should have been”. She tells Agnes that while she was a child and her father was off at war, she started a “relationship” with the grocer, Mr. Kilfeather in order to get food. She’s even adamant that she wouldn’t let Mr. Kilfeather kiss her because she still loved Wullie. She explains that the morning after Wullie got home, he woke up very early in the morning and took the child out and when he returned the child was not with him. A month later Lizzie (presumably) kills herself by stepping in front of a bus effectively leaving Agnes without both parents in a very short succession.

Leek: In chapter thirteen, we learn more about Leek and his emotional state. It’s revealed that he has begun doing coke and sneaking off to the water to draw the hills in peace. We also learn that he was accepted to an art school two years ago, but he didn’t go since everyone else had left already. He has an apprenticeship with a man that is not going well as Leek is emotionally withdrawn and prefers to do menial, repetitive tasks. Leek also has taken it upon himself to get copper from the Pit, a dangerous job that could pay well if successful. However, things take a turn for the worse when Shuggie fails to be a good lookout for Leek and he has to brutally defend himself against the watcher which leads to the watcher being hospitalized and Leek’s teeth being messed up. Throughout this chapter, it becomes obvious that Leek is really struggling with being left behind and he wants to be able to get his own money to have his own space away from his mother.

A very prominent theme in this chapter was him wanting Shuggie to be alright. He takes the time to talk with his brother to see if the kids at school are still bothering him and shows him how to walk “like a man”. Though it’s sad Leek feels the need to do this in the first place, the sentiment behind it is very sweet.

Shug: We don’t see Shug much in these chapters. When we do see him, though, he has appeared looking very cosy with Joanie even going as far as to have Shuggie call her his mother. We finally are able to see how he reacts to Shuggie being very effeminate which did not go very well with him saying, ‘I dont think that boy is mine”. We also get more background as to why he acts the way he does- we learned earlier that Shug’s dad hit his mom, but he reaffirms his violent beliefs when he says, “It’s the Bain code. Hit them afore they hit you”.

Catherine: Catherine features the most in chapter twelve. Here we learn that she will be marrying Donald Jr. soon and they will be moving to South Africa as he has found work there (something we saw earlier in the book with the housewife). Catherine is briefly mentioned throughout the other chapters- she sent. a letter to Leek which he reads repeatedly and she gave him her number which she is adamant about Agnes NOT having.

Things I Liked:

• The repetition of themes like people calling Agnes’ drunk tears “the poor me’s” and everyone saying “you better nip that in the bud” in reference to Shuggie.

Things I Didn’t Like:

• I had to re-read Leek’s chapter to fully understand what was going on with his drug use and his emotions. At one point I thought he had a girlfriend. Not my biggest complaint, but something I found annoying.