Why am I here, if not to make grand, wildly premature proclamations, that Douglas Stuart’s John of John is my book of the year.

OK, so it’s obviously too early to make that call. But I truly cannot fathom a better novel publishing this year. If this doesn’t take the top spot—jeez, if it’s not in my Top 5—2026 will have produced a year of unprecedented magnificence. Seriously.

I enjoyed Shuggie Bain despite its bleakness. I actually skipped (foolishly) Young Mungo. I just wasn’t in the mood for more coming-of-age melancholy at the time. John of John still bears Stuart’s trademark bleakness, but it feels less determined to wallow in the gloom; glimmers of light pierce through those familiar grey tones.

John Calum-Macleod—”Cal”—is ordered home to the Isle of Harris by his father, John. He claims Cal’s grandmother (his mother’s mother) is sick—feet “as purple as calf liver”—and it’s time for him to return into the fold after gallivanting around Edinburgh for too long. Cal dreads the prospect. He’s a closeted gay man, who has enjoyed freedom from his conservative, super-religious father. And his family situation is… complicated, to say the least.

But return he does, forced to hide his sexuality, and confront the friends and family he would rather have left in the past. Stuart gradually unpeels the layers of secrecy within Cal’s family, and the small close-knit island community. The result is a powerful emotional collision, truly glorious and breath-taking; storytelling at its most assured, a thing of rare beauty.