Skagboys

By: Irvine Welsh

Narrated by: Tam Dean Burn

Prequel to the best-selling phenomenon Trainspotting, this exhilarating and moving novel shows how Welsh’s colorful miscreants first went wrong.

Marked by Irvine Welsh’s scabrous humor and raw Scottish vernacular, Skagboys transports us to 1980s Edinburgh, where the Trainspotting crew is just getting started. Mark Renton has it all: the first in his family to attend university, he has a pretty girlfriend and a great social life. But when economic uncertainties and family problems intervene, Rent succumbs to the defeatism - not to mention the drug use - that has taken hold in Edinburgh’s tougher quarters. His friends are responding according to personality. Laid off, Spud Murphy is paralyzed in the face of long-term unemployment. Sick Boy, supreme manipulator of the opposite sex, is scamming and hustling for money and drugs. And meanwhile, psycho Franco Begbie is scaring the hell out of everyone. Darkly humorous, Skagboys gives a gritty and gripping portrait of a time, not unlike ours, when money was scarce, unemployment was high, and drugs seemed the answer.

©2012 Irvine Welsh (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Keeping friends close but your enemies.....

Listening to this made me feel like I was listening to a night out that I'd missed. Having someone tell me a story about the classic mistakes my pals were doomed to make. All along thinking how did I not see that coming ?

Boys will be boys…

Fantastic prequel to the exploits detailed in Trainspotting. Thrilling, expressive narration from Tam Dean Burn. Why hasn’t this been adapted for film yet?

The performance alone made this a great listen

As always, Irvine Welsh hits it out of the park. This is the first of his books that I've listened to (read the others). The characters came to life in all their LLieth glory under Tan Dean Burn's masterful narration. I'm sad it's over but now I'm psyched to go see T2!

Bally

Holy hell what a ride like. Laugh, cry, gawp and laugh some meyr as ye contemplate the human condition

Keep 's me wanting more.

Takes five minutes to get into the Scottish, but when I finished it, I instantly bought Trainspotting to stay in the atmosphere.