TRAINSPOTTING [Signed]

Welsh, Irvine

ISBN 10: 0393314804 / ISBN 13: 9780393314809

Published by W.W. Norton, New York, New York, 1996

About this Item

Octavo, 343 pages. In Very Good condition with Near Fine condition dust jacket. Spine is black with scratched white and neon green lettering. Dust jacket protected by mylar covering, price uncut: "$23.95" on front flap. Boards have mild shelving wear along extremities and a small tear to paper binding on front tail edge. Contains a photo of Irvine Welsh at a signing. Signed flat by Irvine Welsh on title page. JW Consignment. Shelved in Case 5. Irvine Welsh's nonlinear, 1993 debut TRAINSPOTTING skyrocketed the Scottish writer into the literary zeitgeist. Chronicling the adventures, mishaps, and hallucinations of a group of heroin users in Edinburgh, Scotland, TRAINSPOTTING encapsulates the punk rawness of the 1990s, juxtaposing the horrors of drug addiction with the irony of community. The novel was longlisted for the Booker prize in its year of publication (it was deemed too offensive for the shortlist by judges) and went on to be adapted as a cult classic film by Danny Boyle starring Ewan MacGregor in 1996. The British Film Institute ranked Boyle's adaptation 10th in its definitive list of the 100 best British movies of all time. 1391987. Shelved Dupont Bookstore. Seller Inventory # 1391987

Bibliographic Details

Title: TRAINSPOTTING [Signed]

Publisher: W.W. Norton, New York, New York

Publication Date: 1996

Binding: Hardcover

Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: First American Edition, First Printing.

About this title

Synopsis:

Trainspotting is the novel that first launched Irvine Welsh's spectacular career―an authentic, unrelenting, and strangely exhilarating episodic group portrait of blasted lives.

It accomplished for its own time and place what Hubert Selby, Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn did for his. Rents, Sick Boy, Mother Superior, Swanney, Spuds, and Seeker are as unforgettable a clutch of junkies, rude boys, and psychos as readers will ever encounter. Trainspotting was made into the 1996 cult film starring Ewan MacGregor and directed by Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave).

Review:

Irvine Welsh's controversial first novel, set on the heroin-addicted fringe of working-class youth in Edinburgh, is yet another exploration of the dark side of Scottishness. The main character, Mark Renton, is at the center of a clique of nihilistic slacker junkies with no hopes and no possibilities, and only "mind-numbing and spirit-crushing" alternatives in the straight world they despise. This particular slice of humanity has nothing left but the blackest of humor and a sharpness of wit. American readers can use the glossary in the back to translate the slang and dialect--essential, since the dialogue makes the book. This is a bleak vision sung as musical comedy.