Both a prequel to the world-renowned Trainspotting, and an alternative version of it, Skagboys is Irvine Welsh's greatest work.
Irvine Welsh is the author of eight previous novels and four books of shorter fiction. He currently lives in Chicago.
"Masterful. its banter, outrage and razor wit sing off the page" Independent "Brilliant and even more thrilling than its predecessor" Mail on Sunday "Quite simply a masterpiece" Scotsman "A brilliantly funny, scary, sweeping novel with all the energy of Welsh's debut" Independent on Sunday "Funny.visceral and true. Welsh's finest work to date" The Times
Masterful... its banter, outrage and razor wit sing off the page *
Independent *
Brilliant and even more thrilling than its predecessor * Mail on
Sunday *
Quite simply a masterpiece * Scotsman *
A brilliantly funny, scary, sweeping novel with all the energy of
Welsh's debut * Independent on Sunday *
Funny...visceral and true... Welsh's finest work to date * The
Times *
Mark Renton should have been the first of his generation to make it out of government housing and do something with his life. Instead, a dalliance with heroin begins a long downward spiral. This prequel to Welsh's seminal 1993 Trainspotting shows how those characters first got into their dire straits. The story hops among multiple narrators and is filled with Scottish slang and phonetic spellings, which is at first disconcerting. Soon, however, the text develops a poetic rhythm similar to Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. The author further establishes Edinburgh's bleak mood during the early years of Thatcherism by breaking up the narrative with straightforward factual chapters that describe how the Conservative government's policy of economic austerity and erosion of workers' rights engendered a desperation among the lower classes that made dropping out and becoming a heroin addict seem like an understandable lifestyle choice. VERDICT Recommended for fans of gritty European fiction and drug lit. [See Prepub Alert, 3/19/12.]-Peter M. Petruski, Cumberland Cty. Lib. Syst., Carlisle, PA, (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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