This book caught my eye on the shelf at work (the pub, obviously not where I nanny!) and when I found out it was the second book after Trainspotting, I snapped it up.
It still follows the life of Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson, but this time it is ten years after Trainspotting and he is back in Edinburgh after a long stint in London. He inherits a pub from his auntie, and after meeting up with a few familiar faces, embarks upon a new business venture - making porn films in the room above.
It is a success, earning him lots of money and taking the stars to Cannes, however tensions between the crew build, and new relationships are tested, until Simon has to accept that sleeping dogs won't lie and he has to confront the skeletons in his closet.
This sequel is just as risqué, gritty and honest as its well known counterpart; and as something totally different to what I would normally read, I really enjoyed it. It took me a while to get into it, especially as it is written in dialect so is quite trying at times - definitely not one to read hungover or half asleep!
Despite the hard hitting subject topics, the language is still very deftly used to create good descriptions, especially of people:
'a body pumped up by prison steel, yes, but then honed down by drugs and alcohol. His eyes are wild, psychotic slits that bat-dance in your soul looking for good things to crush or bad elements to identify with. Shorn hair peppers a craggy skull you could punch all day and just break your fingers on.'
Irvine Welsh has a certain cynicism to his writing that sounds like he is criticising, but when you consider what he is saying, it is actually quite accurate!
'We're sitting beside some student types who are full of their dull conspiracy theories, all excited as they debate who isn't really dead: Elvis, Jim Morrison, Princess Di. Too full of their own sense of youthful immortality to believe anybody really leaves the gig. Stuck in a life-affirming, death- denying bourgeois dreamworld.'
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes literature to be shocking but believable, and fancies looking through a window into a world completely outside what (I would say) is usual. Not for the fainthearted though!
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