Glue by Irvine Welsh

Before I get to the meat of the matter, I should take the chance to point out that I love Powell’s Books, and I particularly love the used book trade because it keeps me in hard-to-find imports and it reduces waste and consumption of paper.  These little links to Powell’s theoretically earn me a small commission, should anyone ever use them to buy books I talk about.  No one does.  I’m ok with that.  Just, please, buy lots of books from good people.

Right, so, Glue.  Irvine Welsh wrote Trainspotting, which is one of my favorite books.  Some people read romance novels–I read Scottish/British/Irish/American gen-x/drug/crime/sex/drunkenness/poverty  books by folks like Welsh.  I don’t consider Trainspotting and the like pulp, mind you.  I consider it groundbreaking contemporary fiction.  Welsh’s other books aren’t quite as good as his first, because they’re a bit less compact, and perhaps because the shock of the new has worn off a bit.  But throughout, Welsh writes great coincidences and reconciliations and develops fantastic characters, and Glue has plenty of them. 

What I like about Welsh is his willingness to completely alienate a large portion of his potential readership by covering unsavory topics and writing in blue-collar and underworld Edinbro slang and idiom.  At several moments while I was reading this book on the train, I was a bit embarrassed to be reading his character Terry’s lurid sex tales while sitting next to a nice old lady, but simultaneously comforted by the fact that there was no way she could read it over my shoulder, since it makes no freaking sense until you’ve immersed yourself in Welsh’s wacky system of transcribing Scots.  Speaking of Terry, Welsh doesn’t try too hard to make all of his characters likable.  These boys are given to us straight, warts and all.  It’s great.  Few writers are this brave. 

In this novel, we meet four boys from the scheme (aka housing project), a few years younger than the Trainspotting crew.  We follow them as they grow up and end up dealing with their lot as schemies–we get some football hooliganism, some drug use, some rave-scene ideology, some petty crime, some romance, some tragedy, and a lot of insight into men who have managed to remain friends despite growing utterly apart.  We also get cameos from a few of the Trainspotting crew, which is always fun. 

The book’s a gas.  It’s not Shakespeare, but it still matters. 

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