Kicking: The Skag Boys, Junk Dilemma No. 63, The First Day of the Edinburgh Festival Summary

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh is an irreverent and uncompromising portrait of the heroin subculture in Edinburgh. The narrative cycles through a number of different users, pushers, scam-artists, and general hooligans, though it focuses on a core group of five addicts. The novel is essentially the vision of a group of young men who have chosen to drop out of polite society in search of brief, luminous chemical joy.

The first book, Kicking, begins in The Skag Boys. This chapter is narrated by Mark Renton, a young former joiner and current heroin-user who is coaxed away from a Jean-Claude Van Damme video by his domineering friend Simon (Sick Boy) Williamson to go to their preferred dealer, Johnnie (Mother...