'Hopeless romantic' Welsh sends his gang looking for love

The Herald Scotland

4 days ago

But it is the characters he created for Trainspotting that he keeps returning to – even if their latest adventures may be something of a departure for Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie.
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The fourth sequel to Trainspotting, which picks up shortly after the end of the first novel, sees them leaving heroin behind in pursuit of romance and raves.
And Welsh has admitted he has drawn on his own experience as a 'pretty hopeless romantic' for the novel, which sees the characters seeking sex and looking for love in London, Amsterdam, Paris and their home city of Edinburgh, where Welsh suddenly emerged as a major new literary voice in the early 1990s.
Irvine Welsh shot to fame with his debut novel Trainspotting in 1993. (Image: Getty)
Within three years of Trainspotting's publication, it had been turned into an acclaimed feature film starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner and Jonny Lee Miller, who were reunited in 2016 for a sequel set around 20 years on from the original.
Men In Love, Welsh's latest novel, is the second Trainspotting novel since the movie sequel, although the new book unfolds as the 1980s are drawing to a close with Margaret Thatcher still Prime Minister and rave culture sweeping the UK.
Welsh said: 'I've never really left these characters behind. They are in my head as the go-to guys that I'm always writing stories about to try to understand the world.
'To write a novel I really need to have a theme. I really wanted to write a positive book as there is so much hate in the world just now. I wanted to get people thinking about the more emotional and romantic side of life.'
Welsh has been working on Men In Love since getting married for a third time, in 2022.
He said: 'I was thinking back to that era when guys in their twenties first get serious about romance and their partner becomes more important than their mates, but they are not really equipped for it.
'I was looking back and thinking about how useless most guys are at that time. I thought I'd get the most useless guys of all and see how they shape up.
'I think I've always been quite serious about relationships. I was always obsessed with any women who were daft enough to go out with me. I've always been a pretty hopeless romantic at heart.'
Welsh, who worked in Edinburgh City Council's housing department before pursuing a career as a writer, said he had never intended to create a whole series of books on the Trainspotting characters.
The author told The Herald: 'I don't know if it is a blessing or a curse, but I have always lived in the present. I don't really have the ability to look back or forward.
'When I go out with pals they come out with all these stories and tell me what I was wearing 35 years ago. I can't even remember what colour of underpants I put on in the morning.
'I always said in the past that I was done with the characters from Trainspotting, but I'm not going to say that now. I will probably revisit them again.
'But I've just written a contemporary book, which is coming out next year, which is set in Las Vegas and has a whole new cast of characters. It's a very different book, which has been incredibly freeing to write.'
While his new book offers Welsh's fans a nostalgic trip, the author bemoans the impact of new technology on younger generations, society, culture and nightlife.
The author said: 'Things have changed massively, when I think about the freedom that we had. We could do anything.
'The internet was supposed to be this great liberation, but it's become such an intrusive and confining thing now. We are being monitored all the time and we are policing each other.
'I do think about how much more boring my life would have been if we had had the internet, surveillance technology and all that kind of stuff back then. I do really feel for the youth of today. They are not really allowed to transgress in any way.
'Nobody has really got money to do anything now. That's the main reason pubs are shutting down.
'So many music and literature festivals have shut down this summer because people just don't have the money to go to them.
'The internet is also driving us to a post-culture society where a lot of people, particularly working-class people, are not engaging in culture in any way. It's a horrible development.'
Welsh's interest in music has seen him co-write a Trainspotting stage musical, which is hoped to be launched next year, and release a disco-inspired Men In Love album to coincide with the release of his new novel.
After his book launches in Edinburgh and Glasgow this week, he will also be performing late-night DJ sets at the official after-parties.
Welsh will also be making further appearances in his home city over the next few weeks, with a Men In Love book festival event and the world premiere of a new documentary, Reality Is Not Enough, made by Edinburgh-based filmmaker Paul Sng, who followed the author around the world for more than a year.
The film, which is described as 'a gripping and revealing deep dive' into the mind of the author, is said to find Welsh 'at a crossroads, acutely aware of his own mortality.'
Welsh said: 'By god, it makes me look interesting, which is quite an achievement.
'You spend so much time in your own head, you don't really perceive of yourself as someone who has an interesting life.
'You are in all these locations, talking to different people and doing different things. You don't really think of it as being particularly glamorous as you are transit all the time.
'But I have met so many interesting people down the years.
'In some ways, watching the documentary was like meeting a version of myself for the first time.'
Welsh is launching Men In Love days before the main Edinburgh Festival season gets underway.
He said: 'It's great that the Festival happens, but the downside of it is that we put all our eggs into the one cultural basket. It's an importation. There's not really a living, breathing thing going in the town.'