7.6 /10 1 Votes7.6
OCLC 46671177 | 3.8/5 Goodreads Publication date 2001 Originally published 2001 Country Scotland Genres Fiction, Novel | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Pages 469 pp (paperback edition) ISBN 0-393-32215-7 (paperback edition) Similar Irvine Welsh books, Fiction books |
Glue is a 2001 novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. Glue tells the stories of four Scottish boys over four decades, through the use of different perspectives and different voices. It addresses sex, drugs, violence, and other social issues in Scotland, mapping “the furious energies of working-class masculinity in the late 20th century, using a compulsive mixture of Lothians dialect, libertarian socialist theory, and an irresistible black humour.” The title refers not to solvent abuse, but the metaphorical glue holding the four friends together through changing times.
Contents
The four main characters are Terry Lawson (Juice Terry), Billy Birrell (Business Birrell), Andrew Galloway (Gally), Carl Ewart (DJ N-Sign). We first meet them as small children in 1970, then as teenagers around 1980, as young men around 1990 (on holiday in Munich), and as men in their late thirties around 2000 (during the Edinburgh Festival). The novel is split into five different sections.