Douglas Stuart was 20 when he met Michael Cary during a student exchange in Philadelphia. One month later, the future Booker Prize winner says he already knew Michael was the man he would spend his life with.
In a new interview with EL PAÍS, Stuart describes the couple as having effectively “got married” a month after they met — although two men could not legally marry at the time.
They have now been together for 30 years.
Finding safety and love
The relationship began during Stuart’s first visit to the United States. He and Michael then spent four years in a long-distance relationship, building a life across countries before settling together.
Stuart has described Michael as the person who made him feel safe and loved. That history gives their relationship particular emotional weight.
Stuart grew up in poverty in Glasgow and has spoken about learning to feel ashamed of both his class background and his homosexuality. His novels, including Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo, return again and again to queer people searching for tenderness in environments that have taught them to expect pain.
Behind those books is a quieter love story: the man who became home.
Thirty years together
A profile in The Times also recalls how Stuart met Michael when they were both 20. Stuart has said that the instant he saw him, he fell in love and did not go home for three days.
The legal language of marriage came later. The certainty came first.
That is what makes this more than a literary profile. It is the story of a gay man who found love at 20, held on through four years of distance, and is still building a life with the same person three decades later.
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