Men in Love

A Novel

Irvine Welsh

In this prequel to the iconic Trainspotting, Renton, Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie are back, as they search for love, self, and meaning in this brilliantly comic new novel by Irvine Welsh.

Choose life. Choose love? The Trainspotting crew fall for rave and romance in Irvine Welsh’s blazing new novel.

It is the late 1980s, the closing years of an era. A brand-new one is starting. For the Trainspotting crew, this new door is opening—a time for hope, for love, for raving.

Leaving heroin behind—and separated after a drug deal gone wrong—Renton, Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie each want to feel alive. They fill their days with sex, romance, and trying to get ahead; they follow the call of the dance floor, with its promise of joy and redemption.

Sick Boy starts an intense relationship with Amanda, his “princess"—rich, connected, everything that he is not. When the pair set a date for their wedding, Sick Boy sees a chance for his generation to take control at last.

But as the 1990s dawn, will finding love be the answer to the group’s dreams or just another doomed quest?

Irvine Welsh was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the scene of his first book: the hugely successful Trainspotting. That book shot Welsh to fame, precipitated further by the release of the film version by Danny Boyle. Since then he has written eight other works of fiction. He currently lives in Miami

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Endorsements & Reviews

Praise for Men in Love:

A Sunday Times (London) Top Four bestseller

"The arrival of Trainspotting was an earth-shaking cultural moment and it had a huge influence on me. It shines with humor and friendship. Every character here is alive.” Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo

"Like all his best work, Men in Love is propulsive, hilarious and bittersweet in equal measure, as wise on the curdling of intense teenage friendships as it is on the early, doomed attempts we embark on in our twenties to settle down and fall in love." GQ

"There are plenty of moments that showcase Welsh at his best. It is hard not to be charmed by its flair and insolence [and] Welsh has not lost his feel for the particular rhythms and textures of addiction.” The Gaurdian

"Drugs, bad sex, ripe Scottish vernacular. The colloquial vigor of the writing never flags.” The Mail on Sunday

"These characters remain alive on the page, more than thirty years on.” The Daily Mail

Earlier praise for Irvine Welsh:

"Blisteringly funny." The New York Times Book Review

"Irvine Welsh is the real thing—a marvelous admixture of nihilism and heartbreak, pinpoint realism (especially in dialect and tone) and almost archetypal universality." David Foster Wallace

"When he's at his best, Welsh spins a story of four men broken by addiction and betrayal; old friends who've shared their youths, somehow lived through them, and just can't quite seem to let go." - NPR

"Welsh’s entire oeuvre crackles with idiomatic energy and brio, and this rollicking novel is no different." Publishers Weekly

"Raunchy, profane, violent, and frequently hilarious. Delivers a strangely life-affirming dose of dark absurdity, ensuring that, if this is the last we see of these characters, they won’t soon be forgotten." Booklist (starred)

"Irvine Welsh writes with skill, wit, and compassion that amounts to genius. He is the best thing that has happened to British writing in decades." - Nick Hornby, The Sunday Times (London)

"Irvine Welsh writes with style, imagination, wit, and force, and in a voice which those alienated by much current fiction clearly want to hear." The Times Literary Supplement