Welsh, Irvine

Glue

New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. First American Edition. Softcover. “The story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh projects, ‘Glue’ is about the loyalties, the experiences, and the secrets that hold friends together through three decades. The boys become 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, exceedingly thin-skinned and vulnerable to catastrophe at every turn. We follow their lives from the seventies into the new century—from punk to techno, from speed to E—as they struggle with 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 projects, their school, and their ambition to escape from both. Their loyalty is fused in street morality: back up your mates, don’t hit women, and, most important, never snitch—on anyone. ‘Glue’ has the Irvine Welsh trademarks—crackling dialogue, scabrous set pieces, and black, black humour—but it is also a grown-up book about growing up, about the way we live our lives and what happens to us when things become unstuck” (Interior Promo Copy). Yet another inventive and unapologetically self-styled work by the Scottish novelist, playwright, and short story writer, Irvine Welsh (b. 1958—or 1951, if you believe the records of the Scottish police). Welsh has long-enjoyed tangential linkage to the Beat Generation for his shared penchant for casual bohemianism. In the mid-90s, Welsh gave and saw published an interview where he and his interviewer were both what the kids today call “rolling” — blitzed to the gills on MDMA (“ecstasy”). A hilarious article on Welsh from 1996 relates the story of his arrest at a soccer (or “football,” if I am to humor inhabitants of “the island”) game. Welsh was arrested for drunkenness before the game even started, and upon release remarked — to interviewers and friends alike — “At least I haven’t lost my edge.” [ISBN: 0-393-32215-7]. First Edition softcover original (“First American Edition 2001”) as indicated on copyright page; First Printing, as indicated by number sequence thereon. This copy is additionally signed by the noted Welsh enfant terrible. Wesh signature, in thin blue pen ink, reads: "Irvine Welshe." Book in very fine condition with only slightest shelf-wear to fine-edges & corners of front, back cover; otherwise fundamentally pristine. Very Fine. [Item #5328]

Price: $55.00