SOURCE: “Sick Boys,” in London Review of Books, Vol. 15, No. 23, December 2, 1993, pp. 10–11.

In the following review, Turner links Trainspotting to the long tradition of substance abuse in Scottish life and literature, arguing that heroin, unlike alcohol, seems not to provide the comfort of false optimism to its users. According to Turner, Welsh's strengths as a writer are his unromantic realism about the life of the body and his ear for the slang of his working-class characters.

I first heard of Irvine Welsh about a year ago, on a visit to the house of a friend of mine in Glasgow. This friend and I were talking, as we often do, about whether or not it is possible objectively to explain the special relationship that many Scottish men seem to have with their drink. Is it a nation thing, a class thing or a masculinity thing, or is it only...