Glue (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Irvine Welsh
- First Published: 2001
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: 1970-2002
- Setting: Edinburgh, Munich, and Australia
- Principal Characters: Terry Lawson, Billy Birrell, Andrew Galloway, Carl Ewart
- Genres: Long fiction, Domestic realism
- Subjects: 1970’s, Sex or sexuality, Suicide, Crime or criminals, Twentieth century, Twenty-first century, Friendship, 1980’s, Substance abuse, Heroin, Scotland or Scottish people, 1990’s, AIDS, Germany or German people, Australia or Australians, 2000’s
- Locales: Munich, Germany, Australia, Edinburgh, Scotland
There is a certain provincialism, even arrogance, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s well-known, and by now well-worn, complaint that there are no second acts in American literature. In fact, modern writers in any country where writing is inextricably linked to media and money face a special challenge if a first novel proves critically and commercially successful. Such has been the case with Irvine Welsh, whose first book, Trainspotting (1993), about a group of drug addicts and other no-hopers from a part of Edinburgh well off the Festival trail and the maps of tourists and Tories alike,...
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