Although the first chapter tells us where we are going this in no way detracts from the book, in fact it makes it easier to stick with it as we know whatever shit happens there is a followup story to be told.

Often very painful as we travel with Shuggie, sometimes funny as Agnes attempts to keep up appearances in from of the (ex-)miner's womenfolk, always an air of tragedy and incipient disaster as the family stumble from one crisis to the next nearly identical crisis - trapped in cycles of behaviour that are unrelenting.

It convinces as a true account of what life might be like for some of those near the bottom of the social pile - and it reminds us that whatever we may think of those situations they are being acted out by real live human beings. Do their lives not have value? Shuggie's devotion to his mother. Agnes's tempestuous relationship with her demons.

Through it all an undercurrent of religious divide-and-rule between two branches of one religion being used to other and demean those with whom common cause could so easily be found. Plus of course the question of what industrial masculinity means in a world without masculine work. A tale of two taxi drivers - Big Shug, the intolerant exploiter of women, and Eugene, who wants to be exploited by them.

No surprise, that Shuggie with these role models finds a third way in his own nature.