Men in Love by Irvine Welsh review – the Trainspotting boys grow up

The Guardian

16 hours ago

It has been more than 30 years since Irvine Welsh published Trainspotting. To put that in perspective, it's as distant to readers today as Catch-22 or To Kill a Mockingbird would have been in 1993. If you are anything like me, that doesn't feel quite right. Because even at such a historical remove, there remains something undeniably resonant, something curiously current, about Welsh's wiry, demotic, scabrous debut.
In part, this is explained by the sheer scale of Trainspotting's success. It was one of those genuinely rare literary events, wherein a critically acclaimed, stylistically adventurous book catches the cultural zeitgeist to such a degree that it also becomes a commercial sensation, going on to sell over a million copies. Its cultural salience was further compounded by Danny Boyle's cinematic adaptation, one of the highest-grossing UK films of all time, a visual intervention that seemed to crystallise the aesthetics of Britpop – high velocity, high audacity, high nostalgia.
But there is also the broader sense that Britain has never truly escaped that historical moment, that at some point the nation was cursed by a demonic spirit in a bucket hat, condemned to an eternal return: no matter the nature of the crisis, the solution will always be Blairite management consultants, illegal wars in the Middle East, demonisation of society's most vulnerable and Liam and Noel getting the band back together. As the patron sage of centrists, George Orwell, wrote: 'If you want a picture of the future, imagine Ewan McGregor pelting along Princes Street to Iggy Pop – for ever.'
So in some ways, despite being the fifth Trainspotting spin-off so far, Men in Love makes perfect sense as a novel in 2025: old rope in a contemporary culture made mostly of old rope. It displaces 2002's Porno as the original's most direct sequel, taking place in the immediate aftermath of the drug deal/betrayal that closes it out. We meet the boys again, scattered to the winds – Renton forging a new life in Amsterdam, Sick Boy climbing the social ladder in London, Spud attempting a quieter life and Begbie pinballing between prison and his old haunts in Leith.
In alternating first-person chapters, we follow each of the characters as they begin to feel out what adult life might have in store for them. And it all rattles along reasonably enough. Renton attempts to come to terms with his past behaviour, Spud walks the line between a sincere desire to change and the siren call of addiction, Sick Boy sharpens his sociopathic charm into a weapon of class warfare, and Begbie remains trapped by his impulsivity and taste for violence. It all culminates in a riotous society wedding, a tragicomic clash of worlds, the old-guard Thatcherite elite disgusted by the sudden presence of the hoi polloi figuratively pissing in their ornamental pond.
There are plenty of moments that showcase Welsh at his best, impertinent and loose and attuned to the poetic cadence of everyday speech. When his writing hits these heights, most often during flights of knowing, referential, rhetorical fancy, it is hard not to be charmed by its flair and insolence. Similarly, Welsh has not lost his feel for the particular rhythms and textures of addiction. When Spud unexpectedly comes into money, the reader fears for him precisely because Welsh does such a good job rendering the relentless dualism of the addicted mind, forever constructing alternative explanations, stories, justifications, lying in wait and biding its time.
Elsewhere, Men in Love is tough going. Throughout, there is a tendency to grope for edgy and transgressive sentiment in a way that lands closer to juvenile and embarrassing. There are so many instances to choose from, but observations such as 'If women must have mental health issues – and they must – always best to err on the side of anorexia, rather than obesity', or descriptions of the Eurostar as 'smashing through the tunnel's hymen', give a general sense of the issue. To be clear, I am not arguing that there is an ethical problem here (people say all sorts of nonsense, so characters must be afforded that latitude too). The objection is aesthetic. Who do we imagine is responding to this sort of thing? The prospect of a middle-aged Trainspotting loyalist, giggling as they read about a 'chunky bird' and 'Specky Shaftoid', is almost too tragic to bear.
Clocking in at well over 500 pages, there is also the sense that Men in Love could have done with a more rigorous edit. There is a leitmotif regarding the romantic poets that seems undercooked to the point of randomness at times, while conversations about the coming transformations of the internet age were unlikely in 1990. Equally, I don't know how many more times the world needs to hear a story about an indie musician taking their first pill and deciding that dance music is the future.
The reasons why Welsh is still writing Trainspotting lore seem evident enough; these are well-loved, iconic characters and there is apparently still an audience appetite for their adventures. Also, vanishingly few writers will ever know what it is to cast such a long shadow over the culture, and so it would be churlish to judge from a position of ignorance. But reading Men in Love, in 2025, under a Labour government that can't decide if it is echoing Margaret Thatcher, Alastair Campbell or Enoch Powell, it is hard to shake the feeling that we are in desperate, desperate need of a new story altogether.
Keiran Goddard's I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning is published by Abacus. Men in Love by Irvine Welsh is published by Jonathan Cape (£20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.