GlueGlue
Title rated 3.65 out of 5 stars, based on 8 ratings(8 ratings)
Book, 2001
Current format, Book, 2001, , All copies in use.Book, 2001
Current format, Book, 2001, , All copies in use. Offered in 0 more formatsThe story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh projects, Glue is about the loyalties, the experiences, and the secrets that hold friends together through three decades. The boys become men: Juice Terry, the work-shy fanny-merchant, with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy, the boxer, driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and the doomed Gally, exceedingly thin-skinned and vulnerable to catastrophe at every turn.
We follow their lives from the seventies into the new century - from punk to techno, from speed to E - as they struggle with the conditioning of class and culture, peer pressure, and their parents' hopes that maybe their sons will do better than they did. What binds the four of them is the friendship formed by the projects, their school, and their ambition to escape from both. Their loyalty is fused in street morality: Back up your mates, don't hit women, and, most important, never snitch - on anyone.
Glue is the story of four boys growing up in Edinburgh’s public housing developments, and about the loyalties, the experiences – and the secrets – that keep them bonded into their thirties.
Four boys become men: Juice Terry, the work-shy pimp with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy the boxer, driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and Gally, the doomed one, whose skin is thinner than everyone else’s and who seems to find catastrophe at every corner.
As we follow their lives from the seventies into the new century – from punk to techno, from speed to Es – we see them trying to struggle out of the conditioning of class and culture, peer pressure, and their parents’ hopes. What binds them together is the friendship formed by the scheme, their school, and their ambition to escape from both.
Glue has all Irvine Welsh’s usual pace and vigour, crackling dialogue, scabrous set-pieces and black, black humour, but it is also a grown-up book about growing up – about the way we live our lives, and what happens to us when things become unstuck.
We follow their lives from the seventies into the new century - from punk to techno, from speed to E - as they struggle with the conditioning of class and culture, peer pressure, and their parents' hopes that maybe their sons will do better than they did. What binds the four of them is the friendship formed by the projects, their school, and their ambition to escape from both. Their loyalty is fused in street morality: Back up your mates, don't hit women, and, most important, never snitch - on anyone.
Glue is the story of four boys growing up in Edinburgh’s public housing developments, and about the loyalties, the experiences – and the secrets – that keep them bonded into their thirties.
Four boys become men: Juice Terry, the work-shy pimp with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy the boxer, driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and Gally, the doomed one, whose skin is thinner than everyone else’s and who seems to find catastrophe at every corner.
As we follow their lives from the seventies into the new century – from punk to techno, from speed to Es – we see them trying to struggle out of the conditioning of class and culture, peer pressure, and their parents’ hopes. What binds them together is the friendship formed by the scheme, their school, and their ambition to escape from both.
Glue has all Irvine Welsh’s usual pace and vigour, crackling dialogue, scabrous set-pieces and black, black humour, but it is also a grown-up book about growing up – about the way we live our lives, and what happens to us when things become unstuck.
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- London : Jonathan Cape, 2001.
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