Hot Press Meets Irvine Welsh

It will come as little surprise that Irvine Welsh downed a celebratory dram or five when Margaret Thatcher finally passed away in April. However, the best-selling Scottish author also confesses to having felt a slight twinge of sadness at her death.

“I kind of felt like she was the first of the gang to die,” he admits. “We actually had Thatcher’s name on the publicity posters – along with Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie – so it was like losing one of the old crew.”
Although he despised Thatcher and what she stood for, the 54-year-old literary controversialist owes much of his success to her. If it wasn’t for the Iron Lady’s disastrously draconian social policies in the ’80s, which wreaked havoc on working-class estates throughout the UK, he could never have written his ground-breaking 1993 debut, Trainspotting, let alone its 2012 prequel Skagboys.
“She was the invisible hand, she was the architect, she was the one who created all the conditions, whereby the books had to be written. So, to me, her death was bittersweet.”
Featuring younger, slightly less deviant, incarnations of the infamous crew of Leith malcontents, Skagboys has just been released in paperback. He’d previously penned a Trainspotting sequel in 2002’s Porno. How was it revisiting the characters for a third round?
“It was great!” he enthuses. “It’s like meeting old pals, basically. You’ve had these characters in your head for so long. They’re mostly composites, in some ways, of people that you know, so there’s an immediacy about them.”
Hilarious and shocking in equal measures, Skagboys introduces some new characters and further fleshes out some previously minor ones as it follows their youthful flirtations with heroin – and eventual predictable descent into hardcore addiction.
“Yeah, I thought writing the newer characters was more interesting,” Welsh reflects. “I quite liked Keezbo, and I liked finding more out about Matty’s character, who died in Trainspotting. Keezbo was in jail during Trainspotting so it was interesting to find out more about him. It was good fun going back to Renton, Begbie, Spud and Sick Boy, but to some extent you know what you’re gonna get with them.”
Fuelled by largely positive reviews, Skagboys shot straight to No. 1 in the UK best-sellers when it was released in hardback. Strangely, though, it didn’t even make the long-list for the 2012 Man Booker Prize. Speaking at last year’s Edinburgh International Writer’s Conference, Welsh lashed out at the “highly imperialist-orientated Man Booker,” whose winners have alternated “between largely upper-middle-class English writers and citizens of the former colonies, presumably to stamp legitimacy on this ‘global accolade’.”
However pissed off he may have been then, he seems well over it now.
“The thing about the Booker is that it’s not really that important anymore,” he shrugs. “If you want to do well with a book you need to get some kind of TV or film adaptation, and that’s the thing that gives a book legs now. It’s very unusual to win a literary prize today with anything that creates ripples. So they’re not really a big deal to me anymore. Not just the Booker, but literary prizes in general.”
Steeped in sex, drugs, music, criminality and violence, and awash with blood, piss, cum, vomit and faecal matter, Welsh’s novels definitely aren’t for the faint-hearted. They’re also wildly popular with people who wouldn’t normally class themselves as readers. So is there some literary snobbery afoot?
“I think so,” he affirms. “These judging panels are often composed of posh Oxbridge sort of guys, and the kind of people they like to bestow prizes on are people like themselves. It’s not really for me, basically. Thankfully, I already have an audience.”
Welsh’s massive fan-base seems set to expand even further with the autumn release of Jon S. Baird’s film adaptation of his 1998 novel, Filth. Featuring James McAvoy as the corrupt Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson, it also stars Jim Broadbent, Jamie Bell and Imogen Poots.
“James McAvoy is really amazing in it,” Welsh enthuses. “Good as they are, the trailers don’t do Filth justice. It’s not coming out ‘til September 27 in Scotland and then October 4 everywhere else.”
Is it a Scottish production?
“It’s probably about as Scottish as you’re going to get. Most of the actors are Scottish. It’s about as independent as you’re going to get, as well. In terms of finances, it’s a combination of Scottish, UK, American, Belgian, German and Swedish money, so it’s quite a complicated finance packaging.”
Is he normally personally involved in producing the movie versions of his books?
“I’m more involved in this one because Jon wanted me to be one of the producers from the start and to work with him on it,” he explains. “So I was more involved in that end of things than I would normally like to be as a writer. It was an interesting experience though – and all for the good.”
There’s also much industry rumour of Danny Boyle – who so memorably brought Trainspotting to the screen in 1996 – directing Porno next year,
“It’s looking likely, yeah,” he confirms. “I’ve been talking about meeting [producer] Andrew McDonald, and it looks like everyone else, Ewan [McGregor], John [Hodge], Danny and the rest of the crew want to do it. So it’s just a matter of finalising all the details.”
Although Welsh has been based in Chicago for the last few years, he’s back on European turf as we speak. According to his always entertaining @WelshIrvine Twitter account, he’s just endured a fairly full-on week.
“It’s been a bit crazy,” he laughs. “What happened me was: I went across to Brussels where I lost my luggage. Then I went to Cannes for the film festival, where I got locked out of my hotel and had to break back in – but broke into the wrong room! My wife Beth and I were woken up by this guy coming into the room. I don’t exactly know how I managed that. After that, I was back over to Scotland for the Cup Final and that was just a big drinking session. So I’m actually relieved now to be able to start doing some work again!” 
While he has various film and TV projects in the pipeline, Welsh recently completed his ninth novel, which is due for publication next spring. Set in Miami where he owns an apartment, it explores the relationship between two women, a personal trainer and an artist, who are obsessed with each other.
“It’s called The Sex Lives Of Siamese Twins,” he reveals. “I’ve just finally settled on that title today, so you’re actually the very first to know.”

Skagboys is available now through
Jonathan Cape.