Young Mungo

Jodie is Mungo’s older sister. She is different than other girls in her community because she is committed to school and to improving her life. Jodie is admired for being intelligent and kind to others. She is a formative presence in Mungo’s life because she takes care of him and shows a version of maternal love. Jodie has long accepted the realities of who her mother and her older brother Hamish are, but she has high hopes for Mungo. She tries to uplift him with physical affection, sustenance, and books that might inspire him to continue with his education.

Like Mungo, Jodie is also a victim of her environment. She is groomed into a sexual relationship with her married teacher, who leaves her when she gets pregnant. However, Jodie doesn’t embrace the stereotypical norm of girls in her neighborhood; rather than keep the baby and become like her mother, Jodie gets an abortion. This frees Jodie to pursue higher education as she has always wanted. Jodie is one of the only characters in the novel who is truly autonomous and in control of her destiny. She defies the odds of women in the East End and gains admission into university.

Still, Jodie is flawed. Despite being an ally to Mungo for much of his life, she cannot accept his homosexuality. This reveals that there is a limit to Jodie’s love for Mungo. Realizing this allows Mungo to be firm about leaving his family, echoing Jodie’s fierce independence and determination to escape her neighborhood.

Hamish is Mungo’s older brother, who dropped out of school to become a street thug when teachers were unsupportive of him continuing his education. Known for being violent and unforgiving, Hamish leads a gang of Protestant boys and men. People fear Hamish—a reaction Hamish has carefully cultivated. Though Hamish is capable of kindness—he is a good provider for his family, including his girlfriend and their baby, and he often protects Mungo from the depredations he knows Mungo will face—Hamish represses compassion because he believes hiding his vulnerability is the only way he can survive. Hamish embraces the violence of street life, seeing the capacity for extreme brutality as a marker of masculinity, power, status, and success.

Hamish wants the best for his brother, but this brotherly concern is muddled by Hamish’s pride—Hamish refuses to have a gay brother who doesn’t fight. When he learns about Mungo’s relationship with James, his anti-gay bias and fear that Mungo will become like the forever-bullied Mr. Calhoun causes Hamish to beat James nearly to death. At the same time, Hamish feels deep loyalty to Mungo. He provides the knife that Mungo uses to kill Gallowgate in self-defense, and then Hamish identifies himself as Mungo when police are investigating Gallowgate’s death. Hamish is on the whole an ally, but one whose presence in Mungo’s life is often terrifying.

Maureen, known in the novel as Mo-Maw, is Mungo’s mother. Maureen got pregnant with her first child Hamish when she was still a teenager and had two more children before she turned 20. Maureen believes that becoming a mother robbed her of a free and happy life. She has no support from a spouse or boyfriend, because the father of her children died in a knife fight. Maureen embodies the rules of East End street life: She believes in rigid gender roles for men and women and lives to survive, not to thrive. Maureen has a raging alcohol addiction, and this disease negatively impacts all areas of her life. She can barely hold down a job and often ruins relationships through her drunken rages. Her attendance at AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings is a farce because Maureen has not dealt with the real source of her resentment and her disease.

Maureen pushes her children away because she doesn’t show them love or care. She can disappear for weeks, abandoning them entirely. Her irresponsibility is so thorough that she sends Mungo off with two men she’s never met before ostensibly to teach him how to be more masculine—men who end up raping the boy. Maureen uses but resents Mungo’s unrequited love, becoming a surprising antagonist.

James, a Catholic boy who is Mungo’s neighbor, becomes Mungo’s boyfriend. James mourns the loss of his mother, who was good to him and took care of him with deep love. James’s father is often gone from the apartment for weeks to work on an oil rig. Though James’s father is one of the only employed men in the neighborhood, money doesn’t bring James’s happiness. James is gay, a fact his father discovered when he received a phone bill for a hotline James called into. James’s use of the hotline reveals how few outlets he has to explore his sexuality and identity. James’s homophobic father demands James “fix” himself by finding a girlfriend. James does so to please his father, who has a streak of cruelty.

James has a makeshift doocot in which he raises and trades pigeons. James loves his pigeons, and his affection for these birds illustrates his warm nature and symbolizes his dream of one day escaping Glasgow.

James and Mungo connect, and their friendship turns towards sex and romance. James is formative in Mungo’s character development, accepting Mungo for who he is and showing him how to find joy in desire. After Hamish assaults James for being gay and, Hamish wants to assume, turning Mungo gay, and after Mungo’s nightmarish weekend in the countryside, the novel gives James and Mungo an ambiguously happy ending. James, who has already been planning his escape from Glasgow for many months, is another character (like Jodie) with the autonomy to escape his background. James invites Mungo to join him, and it is implied that Mungo does. James and Mungo’s relationship has been forbidden in their neighborhood because of their sexuality and religious differences; we hope they find a friendlier community elsewhere, but either way, James represents the possibility of a new life.

Gallowgate is the primary antagonist in the novel. His real name is Angus, but he goes by Gallowgate as a way of masking his true identity. Gallowgate has recently been released from prison for sexually abusing his brother. A convicted pedophile, Gallowgate is one of the men whom Maureen engages to bring Mungo into the countryside and teach him how to “be a man”—an ironic task that Mungo successfully learns when he embraces the need to kill Gallowgate.

Gallowgate has alcohol addiction, and his tough exterior mirrors his capacity for violence. Mungo has no choice but to be around him, even after Gallowgate rapes Mungo. He finds Mungo an easy target because Mungo has already been exposed as gay, and Mungo is small and easily overpowered. But Gallowgate’s predation and viciousness do not end there. After raping Mungo several times, Gallowgate suspects that Mungo might send him back to prison once they’re back, so Gallowgate attempts to kill Mungo. In self-defense, Mungo stabs Gallowgate, who dies from the knife wound.