Tuesday 21 April 2015

A Decent Ride by Irvine Welsh


"As his keks drop and Auld Faithful springs from his pants like the one o'clock gun, he's happy to endorse the playwright's plea"

I was lucky enough to secure a pre-release ebook for review from the publishers and unfortunately it has taken me way too long to write this review. Whinge over, let's get back to the book.

If you are a fan of Trainspotting, this world will be familiar, albeit from a different bent. Welcome to the world of cabby, Terry "Juice" Lawson. He is a definite pants man, old faithful, as he calls it, is impressive enough to allow this otherwise average guy to star in skin flicks. He has very little impulse control and can be the life of the party.
Life, it seems, wants to get in the way of that.
Queue, health issues, evidence of a chequered heritage, managing a brothel and whiskey bottle issues with a famous tv star client.
Everyone has issues, especially Jonty, some of the necrophiliac variety. If you've read Welsh before, you will no doubt be prepared for some of the more jarring aspects of his work and this one is full of them. There is also an inescapable black humour, mostly through Terry, that is somewhat infectious.
I probably left a point off because I felt as frustrated with my circumstances as Terry in the second half of the book, now you'll have to read up to work out what that means.

In any case, this is certainly interesting reading. I like Welsh's ability to literally write in different voices. It brings an additional challenge to reading quickly, but I love a challenge.


4 out of 5 golden girls aren't like this.

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