Glue

The story of four boys growing up in Edinburgh: Juice Terry; Billy the boxer; Carl, the "Milky Bar Kid"; and Gally. Follow their lives from the 1970s to the new century, from punk to techno, from speed to Es, see each of them as they struggle to get away from the conditioning of class and culture.

An ambitious novel from the author of "Trainspotting" and "Filth." <br>"Glue" is the story of four boys growing up in Edinburgh's public housing developments, and about the loyalties, the experiences - and the secrets - that hold them together into their thirties. <br>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 Gally, the doomed one whose skin is thinner than everyone else's and who 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 ecstasy - we see them trying to struggle out of the conditioning of class and culture, peer pressure, and their parents' hopes. What binds the four of them is the friendship formed by the scheme, their school, and their ambition to escape from both. <br>"Glue" has all Irvine Welsh's usual pace and vigour, crackling dialogue, scabrous set-pieces and black, black humour, but it is also a book about growing up - about the way we live our lives, and what happens to us when things come unstuck. <p>"From the Trade Paperback edition."