Mo-Maw sends teenage Mungo to the countryside with two men she met at an AA meeting.

Mungo arrives at a remote Scottish lake after a long journey with Gallowgate and St. Christopher.

Jodie and Mungo discover their missing mother alive, working a snack cart and dating a man named Jocky.

Mungo befriends James Jamieson, a gentle Catholic boy who keeps pigeons in a makeshift coop.

Hamish gives Mungo a switchblade and pressures him to become involved in gang life.

James and Mungo spend the night together, sharing quiet physical closeness for the first time.

St. Christopher sexually assaults Mungo in the tent, and Gallowgate follows by raping him.

Jodie reveals she has been secretly pregnant by her married teacher, who has since disappeared.

Mungo drowns St. Christopher in the river after St. Christopher assaults him again at the water's edge.

James and Mungo share their first kiss while sitting by a city pond on a bicycle ride.

Hamish threatens to assault James unless Mungo joins Hamish's gang in a fight against Catholics.

Mungo attends the brutal Protestant-Catholic gang fight and is beaten severely by a Catholic boy.

Hamish finds James and Mungo cuddling at the doocot and beats James nearly to death.

Gallowgate tries to drown Mungo in the lake and Mungo stabs him with Hamish's knife.

Mungo returns to Glasgow to find his family and sees James waiting for a bus as police arrive.

Mungo Hamilton is a fifteen-year-old boy sent to the Scottish countryside by his alcoholic mother with two strangers she met at an AA meeting. Back in Glasgow, Mungo's life is shaped by his absent mother, his violent brother Hamish, and a tentative new friendship with a Catholic boy named James that quietly becomes first love. Their relationship is threatened by religious gang warfare, deep homophobia, and Hamish's violent control over Mungo's choices. In the countryside, Mungo is sexually assaulted and repeatedly raped by two convicted pedophiles his mother unknowingly trusted. In an act of desperate self-defense, Mungo kills both men and hitchhikes back to Glasgow, where he finds James packed and waiting for a bus out of the city. The novel closes on a moment of fragile hope as Mungo must choose between his dysfunctional family and a chance at freedom with James.

The core events of Mungo's dangerous coming-of-age story.

Gallowgate and St. Christopher drink heavily on the buses carrying Mungo to the Scottish countryside.

Mungo attempts to clean the shared stairwell to help Jodie but ruins it with shampoo.

Mungo eats dinner with the Campbells and listens to Mr. Campbell blame Thatcher and Irish workers for unemployment.

Hamish's gang raids a builder's yard and Mungo rescues an injured boy from the approaching police.

Hamish throws a brick at a police officer's head to protect Mungo from being arrested.

Gallowgate maneuvers his body closer and closer to Mungo in their shared tent as Mungo grows anxious.

Mo-Maw returns home drunk after Jocky breaks up with her upon learning she has children.

Hamish steals a car and drives Mungo through wealthy neighborhoods to an abandoned castle outside the city.

Jodie and Mungo knock on the Campbells' door to interrupt Mr. Campbell's violent abuse of his wife.

Mungo and Jodie tear apart Mr. Gillespie's abandoned caravan and Mungo pushes it toward the Irish Sea.

Mrs. Campbell secretly takes Jodie for an abortion so Jodie can preserve her chances of going to university.

Gallowgate shelters in a telephone booth and calls his own mother using his real name, Angus.

Mungo visits Jocky at his pawnshop and learns Jocky does not love Mo-Maw and dislikes her drinking.

Gallowgate finds St. Christopher's body washed from where Mungo had hidden it near the river.

Hamish steps forward and identifies himself as Mungo when police arrive asking about the deaths.

Mungo's daily life in the East End of Glasgow is shaped by poverty, gang culture, and the constant absence of reliable adults. While Mo-Maw chases a relationship with a man named Jocky, Mungo navigates the violence of Hamish's gang and the suffocating cycles of the neighborhood. Jodie's secret pregnancy and her quiet abortion represent the impossible choices facing young women in their community, while the destruction of Mr. Gillespie's caravan shows the siblings' rare moments of defiant solidarity. In the countryside, Gallowgate's true nature is slowly revealed, including a phone call to his mother in which he uses his real name, Angus, exposing the depth of his deception. When Gallowgate finds St. Christopher's body washed out from its hiding spot, the tension between the two survivors reaches its breaking point. Hamish's final act of stepping forward to identify himself as Mungo before the police reveals that even the most violent figures in Mungo's life hold an unexpected capacity for loyalty.

The secondary scenes that build Mungo's world of poverty and violence.

Gallowgate and St. Christopher boast around the campfire but lie about why they were imprisoned.

Jodie works at a café and dreams of university but feels trapped by poverty and her secret relationship.

Hamish privately confesses he once dreamed of studying engineering at university before the shipyard laid everyone off.

James shows Mungo a hidden stash of money he has been saving to fund his escape from Glasgow.

Mungo watches neighborhood boys taunt and harass Mr. Calhoun and then quietly helps Mr. Calhoun walk his dog.

Gallowgate pressures Mungo into drinking his first beer and Mungo falls asleep drunk in the rain.

Gallowgate confronts a bruised and bloodied Mungo after the rape and insists Mungo deserved and enjoyed it.

James tells Mungo his father discovered his homosexuality when a gay hotline appeared on the phone bill.

Gallowgate tells Mungo that Mo-Maw revealed he might be gay, using her words to shame and silence him.

James brings Mungo along as he flirts with and kisses a girl, performing heterosexuality for his father.

Jodie receives her university acceptance, having defied every expectation placed on girls from the East End.

Mr. Calhoun shows Mungo old photographs and reveals he once declined to flee Glasgow with a male lover.

Gallowgate and Mungo fill St. Christopher's pockets with stones and sink his body beneath the lake's surface.

Mungo discovers the doocot full of dead pigeons and kills a wounded bird to end its suffering.

Mungo hitchhikes with a kind man named Calum who speaks tenderly of his youngest son, implied to be gay.

Beneath the surface events of Mungo's story are a series of discoveries and decisions that quietly transform every character's trajectory. Hamish's confession about his destroyed dream of university and Jodie's acceptance letter reveal that ambition survives even in the most oppressive conditions, but the cost of staying is devastating. James's hidden savings and his painful revelation about his father discovering the gay hotline show that the desire for freedom and self-knowledge is both brave and costly. Mr. Calhoun's story of the lover he let go to stay in Glasgow serves as a direct warning to Mungo about the consequences of choosing loyalty to family over the chance for a different life. The destruction of the doocot and the death of its pigeons mark the brutal end of Mungo and James's only sanctuary. Mungo's hitchhike home with Calum, a father who speaks tenderly of his gay youngest son, offers the first glimpse of a world beyond East End's rigid cruelties.

The revelations and turning points that reshape Mungo's understanding of himself and his world.