## Details * Title:: [[John of John]] * Authors:: [[Douglas Stuart]] * Tags:: #fiction * Read:: [[2026-06-12]] * Instagram :: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZfZtFEDnwQ/?img_index=1 ## Editions - Edition:: [[Picador]], Signed, First UK Edition, 2026 - Original Copyright:: 2026 - Pages:: 410 ## Purchase * Bookshop.org:: https://bookshop.org/a/94437/9780802167194 ## Annotations There is a moment towards the end of Douglas Stuart’s John of John when the grandmother of the titular character reveals she has known a secret the reader has carried for most of the novel. It’s a secret kept of necessity, because the truth would be damning in a community of strict Protestant Sabbatarianism in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, which serves as the novel’s setting. Acknowledging the secret and the lifelong cost of its repression, the grandmother mutters, “Islands within islands, within islands, within islands.” It’s an obvious play on the mentality of the islands, but it’s also a metaphor for how shame compounds within each layer of compartmentalization when who you are can’t be who you are, in a place where cosplaying sanctimony is the only game in town.  The story of John of John is how people survive on islands of their own making. The tenderness written into these characters is one they never show themselves. I really enjoyed this.  My only complaint is that this edition ends with an “exclusive additional content from Douglas Stuart,” a kitschy, completely unnecessary vignette that takes away from the true ending. Skip it.