Product Description

Ten years on from Trainspotting, Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson is back in Edinburgh after a long spell in London. Having failed spectacularly as a hustler, pimp, husband, father and businessman, Sick Boy taps into an opportunity, which to him represents one last throw of the dice. However, to realize his dream of directing and producing a pornographic movie, Sick Boy must team up with old pal and fellow exile Mark Renton and a motley crew that includes the city's favourite ex-aerated-water-salesman, 'Juice' Terry Lawson. In the world of Porno, however, nothing is straightforward, as Sick Boy and Renton find out that they have unresolved issues to address, concerning the increasingly unhinged Frank Begbie, the troubled, drug-addled Spud, but, most of all, with each other.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17128 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Porno is a sequel to Trainspotting, and builds on the success of that caustic and very funny novel by taking some of the characters through some radical new catastrophes. Sick Boy returns to Edinburgh with his ventures as a pimp and hustler in London having gone pear-shaped. Desperate for money, he comes up with a new idea, one that (he hopes) will really rake in the cash: the production of a low-rent porn film. Now Welsh introduces us to a new development: the novel’s Sick Girl, Nicola Fuller-Smith, the object of Sick Boy's fevered lust, whom he also believes will be his passport to all kinds of substance-abusing happiness – needless to say, he’s in for a rude awakening.

Other favourite characters from Trainspotting make a welcome reappearance: Renton, Begbie (even more psychotically dangerous than in the earlier book) and the unfortunate Spud, still unable to kick the drugs. Welsh fans need not hesitate: this is every bit as exuberant, hilarious, disgusting and irresistible as its predecessor.--Barry Forshaw

Review
'Brilliantly written, inventive, funny, appalling, frightening and every bit as good as Trainspotting' Mail on Sunday

From the Publisher
Hardback edition of the sequel to Trainspotting

Customer Reviews

porno Irvine Welsh
This book will probably be heralded as Welsh's return to form but I doubt whether he left it in the first place.
This, the sequel to trainspotting has many welcome continual traits. Drug abuse, scheming, cheating, violence-all the themes that highlight the worse sides of human behavior are all here, that give us that sick kick. However Porno is not as black nor foul as it's predecessor and this is coupled with warmer relationships and a more sedantry pace. The frenetic drug fuelled core to trainspotting has given way to the slow sleaze of porn. The focus on sickboy is fresh and the return of the other characters not tired nor rinsed. Porno is an accomplishment yet what will the critics say? Don't let their consistencies get in the way. This book cannot be agenda setting. Trainspotting has done that already but it is still a well crafted, revealing and most importantly, worthy successor. Roll on film.

All the young junkies...
Before you read this book, you definitely must first read Welsh's first novel Trainspotting, and you should probably also read his last one, Glue. Porno is a direct sequel to Trainspotting, bringing back virtually all the characters some ten years later, and it's a semi-sequel to Glue, adding some of that book's characters into the mix, most notably "Juice" Terry Lawton and Rab Birrell. Porno will lack a great deal of depth and resonance for readers not familiar with those earlier books and their characters and settings.

And therein lies both Porno's attraction and minor disappointments. If you loved Trainspotting, reading Porno is very much like the experience of having seen a great band in a tiny club when they were just starting, and then seeing the same band ten years later in a large venue when they are more popular. They may still be amazing and play your favorite songs, but inevitably they've mellowed a touch, the intensity is isn't the same, and you get a little wistful. And to a certain extent, that's exactly what the book is about, aging, maturing, and getting over one's past. It's totally unfair to expect another Trainspotting from Welsh, an author can only write that passionate and electric a book once, and it's usually the first book they write. In any event, readers have had ten years to get used to reading Scots dialect and it's hard to conceive of what Welsh could write about that would be equally shocking as his heroin underworld.

In any event, Porno is a carefully plotted and constructed story, told in alternating first-person chapters by Sick Boy, his new lady Nikki Fuller-Smith, Spud, Begbie, and Renton. The central character is Sick Boy, who's seeking to reinvent himself as post-millenium entrepreneur, starting by making a porn film with his circle of acquaintances. Eventually this intertwines with the reappearance of Renton and the question of what went down in London ten years ago when he cheated Sick Boy, Begbie, and Spud on a heroin deal and skipped town. Cynics will no doubt say that Welsh is looking to ride the sequel bus to potloads of money, which is, again, unfair. Clearly the Trainspotting crew were the characters closest to his heart, so of course he's going to want to revisit them and it seems churlish to suggest that an author who uses characters twice is a sellout.

Foe most part the characters are exactly as they were in the earlier books, although to varying degrees, most realize they're getting older and need to change. In this regard, Spud's story is the most poignant and affecting of the lot. And of course Renton's attempt to settle the past and lead a normal life is hard not to empathize with, which is why mad-dog Begbie is such a menacing presence throughout the book. Ultimately however, this is a comedy, lacking the darkness of Trainspotting, or Welsh's severely underrated Filth. It's a wonderful sentimental adventure full or wacky hi-jinks, and comuppances aplenty.

A return to form
As I read Porno I was pulled back into the world of renton, sick boy et. al, and was pleased to say that despite all the hype that trainspotting went on to produce, the new book is a truly believable 10 years on. Don't know how they'll film it though. In my top 3 welsh books - trainspotting and marabou stork nightmares being the others. Highly recommended.