Glue

In Glue, four lads who grew up in the Edinburgh schemes tell their narrative of secrets, experiences, and allegiances that kept them together into their thirties. Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; Billy the boxer, driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; and the doomed Gally, who has one less skin than everyone else and seems to find catastrophe at every corner are the four boys growing into men. Juice Terry is the work-shy fanny-merchant, with sticky fingers and corkscrew curls. Following their lives from the 1970s into the new century—from punk to techno, from speed to Es—we witness their struggles against peer pressure, cultural and class conditioning, and parental expectations that their sons would succeed more than they did. The four of them are united by their camaraderie, which was forged via the scam, their shared school, and their desire to leave both behind. Their street morality—backing up your friends, not hitting women, and, most crucially, never grassing on anyone—is what ties them together. Glue is a large-scale, ambitious novel with all of Irvine Welsh's trademark energy and vigor—jazzing dialogue, brittle set pieces, and dark, dark humor—but it's also a mature read about maturing, about how we live our lives and what happens to us when things go wrong.