Irvine Welsh’s latest novel is a brilliant addition to the Trainspotting universe, reuniting Mark Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie as they attempt to find love in their respective post-addiction lives. As ever with this unpredictable quartet, their antics will leave readers shocked to the core, laughing to the point of tears and revelling in the nostalgia of the hedonistic early nineties. Framing their escapades is the tale of Edward Reece, an Ancient Mariner figure from the Port of Leith who dispenses lifestyle advice to his younger proteges regarding their chances with women and the necessary strategies for leaving their problems ‘onshore’. A recurrent figure in the background of the tale, Eddie’s behaviour and his reflections on the darker sides of seafarers abroad take the reader into familiar, if still challenging, Welsh territory.
For the full SP, let’s observe where the four Leith boys find themselves at the start and where Welsh takes them: Simon “Sick Boy” Williamson is now operating on the periphery of the pornography industry, making adult films for Andreas, a Greek-London director. His rapacious sexual appetites and aptitudes for seducing women remain perpetually unsated, and his wit and intelligence – along with his ability to spot an opportunity, be that financial, emotional or carnal – mark him out as a cut above his peers (at least in his own eyes). Sick Boy seduces Amanda, a wealthy and well-connected woman rebelling against her Buckinghamshire MP father. In an attempt to balance the grandmotherly ambitions of his own ‘Mama’ whilst undermining and antagonising his father, Simon concocts a story about a forthcoming pregnancy and fatherhood. Whilst trying to establish if, in the words of Eddie Reece, he is a ‘shagger who has fallen in love’, he determines that a chance encounter on holiday with one of two women he meets doesn’t count as infidelity thanks to the manner in which they consummate their passions. The grim manner in which he satisfies his lusts with a victim of a severe car accident in a French hospital is pure Irvine Welsh, combining gallows humour, black comedy and a bleakly misanthropic view of human relationships.
Mark Renton has abandoned his London base for a new start – and safety from a vengeful Begbie – in an innocuous and run-down district in the heart of Amsterdam. A self-appointed exile, he plans to stay clean and live a purposeful life with a renewed energy following a stint of ‘cold turkey’ and abstinence in a cheap hotel. Renton attracts the attention of Monique, a sultry receptionist by day and a hedonistic enthusiast of club, drugs and polyamory by night. The development of their relationship offers Renton new experiences and considerable stability in contrast with his previous lives. As Mark’s living situation improves, Monique helps awaken his entrepreneurial streak and the pair launch a business that taps into the nineties’ club scene – one that allows Renton to dabble in the soft drugs that were once en vogue.
Spud remains in Scotland with Alice, his partner, carving out a life on minimum wage in Edinburgh. Save only for Spud’s occasional good luck pursuing questionable attempts to acquire money, the pair remain perpetually on the breadline, with Spud’s temporary employment in the fringes of Edinburgh’s ‘gig economy’ – ‘a bit of this, a bit of that’ – seemingly his lifelong destiny. When he realises that education may be the only route out of poverty, he explores classes focused on literacy. In an act of selfishness he gains fortune which places him in an invidious position: Spud can either return a purse to its rightful owner or seize the opportunity to bring some joy to his and Alice’s otherwise challenging lives.
Francis James Begbie is still an unhinged psychotic with a propensity for violence, possessing an unquenchable thirst for retribution and revenge against Mark Renton for his betrayal. Having sworn to inflict maximum punishment on his ginger nemesis, Begbie proceeds to hound Renton’s network of friends and family for any information about his current location, while holding Renton’s parents in higher regard for having all but severed ties with their son. Men in Love sees his ongoing encounters with the police come to a head, while exploring both his role as a father and his growing involvement in Simon Williamson’s affairs. If there is a less qualified mentor for any man seeking guidance in matrimony, Welsh has yet to invent him. And, if the mayhem and madness of Begbie’s violent (if verging on slapstick) encounters are anything to go by, the novel is testament to the notion that you can take the boys out of Leith, but you can’t take the Leith out of the boys.
Welsh brings his own characteristically biting context to the nineties when Amanda’s father, Godfrey (‘God’), is invited to receive an honour for his work. Before and during the service, Godfrey encounters a well-known public figure whose charitable persona, he suspects, is a well-crafted smokescreen for other, horrendously darker predilections and activities away from prying eyes. This is the first major contemporary novel I’ve read that features several ‘guest’ appearances by James Wilson Vincent Saville – a figure resoundingly mistrusted by the MP, who questions the wisdom of the process by which he achieves his much sought after public validation.
Men in Love is fiction that gets better with every page. This is Welsh arguably back to his best – on form, in form, and writing that keeps you wide awake long after the final word is read.
Men in Love is published by Jonathan Cape
