To open his book Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance (1996), Irvine Welsh used an epigraph taken from I Need More: The Stooges and Other Stories (1982), the autobiography of the so-called Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop: "They say that death kills you, but death doesn't kill you. Boredom and indifference kill you." This statement seems to encapsulate the theme of not only Welsh's fiction but also his life. Welsh and his characters fight against the boredom and indifference created by their living conditions in Scotland. They use drugs, women, and violence to bash their ways through life, trying to find a way out. Welsh's first novel, Trainspotting, crashed onto the British scene in 1993, kicking up controversy in its wake. The book was critically acclaimed for portraying Scottish youths in a gritty and often violently realistic way, yet scathingly condemned by more conservative critics who accused Welsh of glorifying drug...