Title: Ecstasy
Author: Irvine Welsh
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 290
Rating: 8/10
Irvine Welsh – Ecstasy
What we have here is a collection of three novella-length stories by Irvine Welsh, the master of drug-induced debauchery and the Scottish icon who wrote Trainspotting, amongst other things. I’m actually a huge fan of Welsh’s, and this is the eighth Irvine Welsh book that I’ve finished, with two more on my ‘to be read‘ pile, and I can safely say that this is Welsh at his best.
The three stories, dubbed “tales of chemical romance”, are classified further as Lorraine Goes to Livingston (A Rave and Regency Romance), Fortune’s Always Hiding (A Corporate Drug Romance) and The Undefeated (An Acid House Romance), and boy are they crackers.
The Undefeated is featured on the book’s blurb, a story about a man and a woman who fall in love in the backstreets of Edinburgh, but I thought it was the weakest of the three. Lorraine Goes to Livingston includes a writer who has a stroke, her perverted partner, an erotic novel and a man who has sex with corpses.
Irvine Welsh
Fortune’s Always Hiding, which was my favourite of the three, followed the exploits of a young man who falls in love with a woman who has no arms, a victim of the drug ‘Tenazedrine‘, which is based upon the real-life drug Thalidomide. I won’t reveal the ending, because it was epic – suffice to say you need to read it.
That is, you need to read it if you like to read about the darker sides of human existence – if you’re used to romance novels, it might be best to steer clear. It’s all about MDMA and anal sex, not rainbows and unicorns – it’s Irvine Welsh.
Irvine Welsh Quote
