Skagboys Paperback – June 17, 2013

As a long time Welsh fan, I suppose I could be considered a little biased - but really, in all honesty, this is one of the cult Scottish author's finest efforts to date.Skagboys revisits the sunny port of Leith and adjoining Edinburgh, and the eclectic cast of characters that made up Welsh's debut effort - the drugged-out classic Trainspotting. All your skeevy old pals are here... ever-acerbic Mark Renton, sweet natured Spud, scheming Sickboy and, naturally, the delightfully psychotic pugilist, Begbie. Only this time, we meet Leith's finest schemies in their early twenties - just as they're developing that nasty little heroin habit which was the focal point of Trainspotting.So yes, it's a prequel to Trainspotting, featuring characters that should be familiar to fans of the earlier book or its cinematic adaptation. But, as always, Welsh is not afraid to delve a little deeper. While on the surface a simple story of a hopeless descent into addiction, the novel also chronicles the sad devolution of the working class in dystopian mid-eighties Scotland.It's quite interesting, but also quite depressing, to bear witness to the slow ravaging of blue collar Scottish society, whose denizens turn to drugs and violence to numb the economic and social hardships incurred by the rise of Maggie's Farm. The novel also deals with the rampant incursion of AIDS into Edinburgh - once Europe's AIDS capital - which spreads all too rapidly through shared needle use and illicit sex.If you're a fan of Trainspotting, or it's excellent sequel Porno (which revisits our anti-heroes in their mid thirties) then I simply can't recommend this read enough. In the off chance you've read some of Welsh's other works, and haven't got around to Trainspotting, then I'd advise you to start here. Be warned, though - as with all the author's works, this is definitely NOT for the faint of heart.Vintage Welsh. It's a good thing.

I loved this book.As an American, the slang and written accents were hard at first that I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it through to the end. I found the best way is to just keep reading and not focusing on each word you don't know. They're mostly words you know like "to" and "cold", just spelled differently to get the effect of the Scottish accent.That being said, I loved getting the back stories of the characters. Welsh has an insanely awesome ability to describe the feelings of the characters and situations they're in, in a way that's relatable (even though I've never been a male junky in Scotland). I thoroughly enjoyed it and couldn't put it doon.

This book is a must read for Welsh fans. If you read the cover, you know how it starts, and if you read or saw Trainspotting, you know how it ends, so it would be hard to give any spoilers even if I were inclined to.The central story is the decline of Mark Renton, who starts out as a university student with a wonderful girlfriend and a real shot at "getting out" and ends up, well, you know. That theme is compelling, but the book also cycles through vignettes of the other main characters: Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie, as well as several other peripheral characters. With the exception of Begbie - who is a constant through all three books - they all "fall", but since they don't have as far to fall as Renton, they pretty quickly end up in the state you meet them in Trainspotting. The stories are poignant and well written, but after a while, I did find that they became a bit repetitive, and it became a bit of a slog to get to the end - particularly, as I said, when I knew pretty much what the end was going to be. Personally, I think it would have been more effective if it had been pruned a bit.Much has been said about the phonetic dialectic writing. I only saw the movie Trainspotting, but if I remember Porno correctly, he only used dialectic writing for some characters (Spud?). In this book, it's most characters. I'm pretty ambivalent about it. I think it adds a bit of flavor, but on the other hand, I would have been happy for him to only use it when someone was talking. Since he used it for everything, I eventually just stopeed noticing.So definitely well worth reading, but you may find yourself skimming in places.

One of the best books this author has written, it is remarkable in scope, humor, depth of character, the ability to emit the most genuinely skin-crawlyingly disturbing scenes, followed by some of the funniest -- and always written with the unflinching respect of truth. I don't understand how he does it, but as busy as I am, I read this 500-plus page book at every possible free moment, sad now that it's over. And don't be put off by it's overly grim cover -- sorry publisher, but it just doesn't fit the book, in my opinion.Just as with his other books, Welsh writes with phoenetically-accurate dialogue -- it takes some time to get used to it, and I recommend your first read be a good 50 pages to get the flow of the writing in your head. In Skagboys he does something even more remarkable, which is to write his different characters with appropriately different accents, reflecting their origin and place in life. I found I carried their voices around in my head during the days of reading Skagboys.I have listened to interviews with Welsh and it is clear, as I have often heard said, that he is a genuinely decent and incredibly nice guy. Somehow that makes reading him even more pleasurable, for this reader anyway.Do yourself a favor, and read this book.

Super quick delivery and book is in as great shape as advertised. Can't wait to read.

I own all of Irvine Welsh's novels, and this one has been my least favorite so far. It felt long and drawn out. Usually, I can't put a Welsh novel down...

Das Buch von Irvine Welsh ist gut geschrieben und gibt Einblicke in die Charaktere von Trainspotting. Die Schreibweise ist gut - der Slang - für nicht Native Speaker teilweise etwas schwierig zu verstehen - aber je länger man liest desto einfacher wird es.Wer Trainspotting mag - für den ist auch dieses Buch eine Empfehlung

This book is prequel for Trainspotting

Bought it for my girlfriend, although prepare Google translate because there's some pretty hard to understand slang

Just as good as Trainspotting.

Great storytelling, dark humour...to be expected from an amazing author