Product Description

"Glue" is the story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh schemes, and about the loyalties, the experiences - and the secrets - that hold them together into their thirties. Four boys becoming men: Juice Terry, the work-shy fanny-merchant, with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy the boxer: driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and the doomed Gally - who has one less skin than everyone and seems to find catastrophe at every corner.As we follow their lives from the seventies into the new century - from punk to techno, from speed to Es - we can see each of them trying to struggle out from under the weight of the conditioning of class and culture, peer pressure and their parents' hopes that maybe their sons will do better than they did. What binds the four of them is the friendship formed by the scheme, their school, and their ambition to escape from both; their loyalty fused in street morality: back up your mates, don't hit women and, most importantly, never grass - on anyone.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12190 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
With a title like Glue, it would seem reasonable to assume that Irvine Welsh's new novel is a profound reflection upon the pitfalls of solvent abuse. In fact, the glue of Welsh's book deals with the bonds that unite four boys growing up together in "the scheme", the "slum-clearance" flats of Edinburgh, whose optimistic construction in the 1970s give way to the poverty, unemployment and crime of the 1980s and 1990s. It is this despair that defines the lives of Welsh's central protagonists: Terry Lawson, work-shy and sex-mad; Carl Ewart, budding DJ; Billy Birrell, boxer, and Andrew Galloway, a drug addict who tests HIV-positive.

Glue is a bildungsroman of growing up bad, recounted in Welsh's inimitable style. The novel follows the boys through their early forays into sex, drink, drugs and football violence, written in the author's trademark vernacular. Carl Ewart poses crucial questions such as: "How dae ah chat up a bird?" and "Do I wear a rubber johnny? (If so, nae problem, I've started trying them on so ah ken how tae fir them)". Welsh also attempts occasional political comment on the friends' difficulties: Billy Birrell reflects: "Having money is the only way to get respect. Desperate, but that's the world we live in now." However, Welsh is better at grotesque moments of sex and violence and offhand one-liners, such as: "Guilt and shaggin, they go the gither like fish 'n' chips". Fans of Trainspotting will love Glue, even down to the brief appearance of Begbie and Renton, but others may feel that the novel is just more of the same, and that this performance finds Welsh stuck in a rut. --Jerry Brotton

Independent on Sunday
‘Welsh is brilliant at what he does… This is his most readable and memorable novel since Trainspotting’

The Face
‘... Welsh is at the top of his game’

Customer Reviews

Welsh comes of age
Just like Oasis, Welsh shot into the public consciousness with a staggering debut ("Trainspotting") and has spent the rest of his career trying, and failing, to match it. 1999's "Filth" came pretty close, but the tapeworm sub-plot showed that Welsh still hadn't got over his penchant for playing literary games instead of doing what he does best, i.e. characterisation and dialogue.

With "Glue", however, he is definitely back to his best. On the face of it "Glue" sounds similar to "Trainspotting", following as it does a group of mates from the Edinburgh schemes as they get drunk, stoned and generally battered & bruised over a 4-decade period.

But the book is as much about Scotland, and Britain as a whole, as it is the central characters. Welsh's grasp of period is faultless, as he traces the social changes in British society from the 1970s through Thatcherism and the E generation to the present day, and the way his characters either ride the wave or are swept away.

The usual Welsh elements are all there - drugs, booze, sex, football, humour, swearing, politics - but for the first time there's a maturity here, a soul, a desire to place the characters and their activities into a sociopolitical context which can in some way explain their lifestyle choices.

Ultimately, it's a book about friendship and loyalty, and how these qualities somehow manage to endure even when the world keeps on kicking you in the teeth. A funny, gripping, and for the first time touching Welsh novel.

The Nephew of Trainspotting
Welsh is an interesting and thought provoking author and each new book is awaited. Is Glue worth the wait? Yes.

More the nephew of Trainspotting than any relation to Filth - the reader is back to the extreme Scottish vernacular with each character given a slightly different slant. We are taken into the 70s, the 80s, the 90s and the early 2000s'.The story is told from the perspective of the four main characters and explores their emotions and their lives. The scenes are often extreme and as always with Welsh graphic.

I found the book readable and worthwhile but I have to say that the first 200 pages are the best as we explore the early years and development of these characters and background. My favourite portion was the football match - when the tension and sweat fair dripped from the narrative and the page.

The final section was a little daft in places but did tie up the lifes of the compadres well if not satisfactory.

Trainspotting was original but this is a worthwhile book and a must read for 2001.

Welsh shines with a tapestry of classic dialogue and humour
The book follows the fortunes of four young "schemies" from Edinburgh - tracing their lives from youngsters in the early 70s through to the new millenium.

The book is colourfully written in the vernacular of Edinburgh and it is this feature which, in a similar vain to Welsh's other books, can make it hard to read - but once into the patter makes it a scream.

The characters are all different and flawed in different ways - there is Juice Terry - a Silver Tongued Cavalier who seems to be growing the shape of Marlon Brando more than Graeme Souness, who he idolises. Terry is a beer swilling, piss taking womaniser, who's outlook on his warped morality can only be summarised by his own phrase for it; "the spice ae life".

Playing the butt of the jokes of Juice Terry are Billy "Business" Birrell - a quiet, talented boxer, Carl "NSign" Ewart - an albino headed Hearts supporter who makes it as a Club DJ - and Andrew "Gally" Galloway - who lady luck does not shine upon in any way.

The rich tapestry of their interaction and the other characters brought along make this book difficult to put down. As ever, with Welsh, there is grit and sorrow in the book, but the moments where humour takes over, either in dialogue or in circumstance bring tears to the eyes.

On the whole - excellent read.