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Irvine Welsh returns to Edinburgh, the home of Trainspotting, with a new novel featuring one of his most iconic and beloved characters - 'Juice' Terry Lawson - that's thick on the Scottish brogue, heavy on the filth and masterful in its comedic timing.
A Decent Ride sees Irvine Welsh back in Edinburgh, this time with one of his most compelling and popular characters front and center: the rampaging force of nature that is 'Juice' Terry Lawson, first seen in Glue.
Juice is a man who contains multitudes: he's a top shagger, drug-dealing, gonzo pornstar and taxi driver. As we ride along in Juice's cab through the depraved streets of Edinburgh, Juice encounters a series of charmingly filthy characters, each of whom present their own, uh, unique challenges.
Has he finally met his match in Hurricane 'Bawbag'? Can he discover the fate of the missing beauty, Jinty Magdalen, and keep her idiot-savant lover, the man-child Wee Jonty, out of prison? Will he find out the real motives of unscrupulous American businessman and reality-TV star, Ronald Checker? And, crucially, will Juice be able to negotiate life after a terrible event robs him of his sexual virility, and can a new fascination for the game of golf help him to live without ... a decent ride? (The meaning of the title is starting to sink in now, huh?). So buckle your seatbelts and prepare for one unforgettable ride.
"Masterfully, Terry develops and stays true to his almost fiendish appetites throughout the novel, all while exploring his complicated family history and romantic endeavors, and still manages to avoid incarceration. This novel isn't for the squeamish, prudish, or faint of heart." - Kirkus
"Overstuffed, but still great entertainment, even if it lacks the emotional heft of Trainspotting (1996) and Skagboys (2012)." - Booklist
"Without question, our most distinguished living exponent of the so-called 'excremental vision of life' - a line that goes back (to pick a few names) via James Joyce, Swift, and Ben Jonson, to Chaucer, writers who have explored what meanings of human existence are to be found in the toilet bowl." - The Times (UK)
"Irvine Welsh, I think it's safe to say, is not a writer who's mellowing with age... Welsh's [language is an] astonishingly supple invention: one that can combine scabrousness and lyricism, comedy and ruefulness in the same paragraph... [if] you fancy an authentic and often thrilling blast of full-strength Irvine Welsh, then you're in for a treat." - The Spectator (UK)
"It's a stern reader who wouldn't fall for his filthy charm." - Sunday Telegraph (UK)
This information about A Decent Ride was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Irvine Welsh was born in the great city of Edinburgh, Scotland. His family moved from their tenement home in Leith, to the prefabs in West Pilton, and then onto Muirhouse's maisonette flats.
Welsh left Ainslie Park Secondary School when he was sixteen and had various jobs but did not really like work any more than he did school. Welsh eventually returned to Edinburgh where he worked for the city council in the housing department. He went on to study for an MBA at Heriot Watt University.
In Edinburgh, Welsh started to write. Digging out some old diaries, Welsh did a draft of what would become Trainspotting. Welsh published parts of this from 1991 onwards in DOG, the West Coast Magazine, and New Writing Scotland.
When Trainspotting was published in 1993, Welsh shot to fame. Despite ...
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