ABSTRACT
Irvine Welsh was born in Leith in 1958 and left school at sixteen. Few first-time novelists have had as big an impact as Irvine Welsh and fewer still reach a new audience, but Trainspotting genuinely did reach out to people who would normally find their artistic needs fulfilled by music or film rather than fiction. Around Renton and his associates—Sick Boy, Spud, the semi-psychotic Begbie—Welsh builds a portrait of an underclass in determined rebellion against a society that rejects it and in pursuit of a life of hedonism and instant gratification. Welsh courts the danger of falling into sentimental laddishness, but the 'glue' that holds the characters together remains believable. In many of Welsh's books ghosts from Trainspotting have been glimpsed in walk-on roles, but in his most recent novel Welsh has returned wholeheartedly and unashamedly to the milieu and the characters of his debut book.
