Whatever happened to wasted youth? By which I mean, totally wasted, and really wasting it. Scottish novelist and screenwriter Irvine Welsh is to publish a new sequel to his seminal 1993 novel, Trainspotting, about heroin-addicted youths in Edinburgh. Ah, you might think, just what the world needs now, midlife-Trainspotting: men trudging around in tracksuits looking mildly disappointed at how their lives panned out (“Choose bitcoin!”; “Choose B12 supplements!”; “Choose a lunchtime nap!”).
As some might know, Welsh has already produced quasi-sequels for Trainspotting, with sundry literary outings for his characters. There’s also Danny Boyle’s 2017 film, T2: Trainspotting, featuring the original cast, including Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle, set two decades after the first cinematic outing. The new book, Men In Love, will pick up the story just after the first novel ends, with feral Rent Boy, slippery Sick Boy, violent headcase Begbie, and loser Spud heading into their mid-20s, looking for love.
