Glue
Irvine Welsh
W. W. Norton & Company
<p>An epic novel about the bonds of friendship from the author of <i>Trainspotting</i>.The story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh projects, <i>Glue</i> 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&#8212;from punk to techno, from speed to E. Their mutual loyalty is fused in street morality: Back up your mates, don't hit women, and, most important, never snitch&#8212;on anyone. <i>Glue</i> has the Irvine Welsh trademarks&#8212;crackling dialogue, scabrous set pieces, and black, black humor&#8212;but it is also a grown-up book about...</p>