Glue is the story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh schemes, and about the loyalties, the experiences - and the secrets - that hold them together into their thirties. Four boys becoming men: Juice Terry, the work-shy fannymerchant, with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy the boxer: driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and the doomed Gaily - who has one less skin than everyone else and seems to find catastrophe at every corner.

Glue is the story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh schemes, and about the loyalties, the experiences - and the secrets - that hold them together into their thirties. Four boys becoming men: Juice Terry, the work-shy fannymerchant, with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy the boxer: driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and the doomed Gaily - who has one less skin than everyone else and seems to find catastrophe at every corner.

As we follow their lives from the seventies into the new century - from punk to techno, from speed to Es - we can see each of them trying to struggle out from under the weight of the conditioning of class and culture, peer pressure and their parents’ hopes that maybe their sons will do better than they did. What binds the four of them is the friendship formed by the scheme, their school, and their ambition to escape from both; their loyalty fused in street morality: back up your mates, don’t hit women and, most importantly, never grass - on anyone.

Despite its scale and ambition, Glue has all Irvine Welsh’s usual pace and vigour, crackling dialogue, scabrous set-pieces and black, black humour, but it is also a grown-up book about growing up - about the way we live our lives, and what happens to us when things become unstuck.

ROUND ABOUT 1970:

THE MAN OF THE HOUSE

Windows ’70

Terry Lawson

Carl Ewart

Billy Birrell

Andrew Galloway

1980ish:

THE LAST (FISH) SUPPER

Windows ’80

Terry Lawson

Billy Birrell

Andrew Galloway

Carl Ewart

IT MUST HAVE BEEN 1990:

HITLER’S LOCAL

Windows ’90

Billy Birrell

Andrew Galloway

Terry Lawson

Carl Ewart

APPROXIMATELY 2000:

A FESTIVAL ATMOSPHERE

Windows ’00

Edinburgh, Scotland

Somewhere Near the Blue Mountains,

New South Wales, Australia

Edinburgh, Scotland

Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia

Edinburgh, Scotland

Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia

Edinburgh, Scotland

Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia

Edinburgh, Scotland

Sydney Airport, NSW, Australia

Edinburgh, Scotland

In-Flight

Edinburgh, Scotland

Bangkok Airport, Thailand

Edinburgh, Scotland

Heathrow Airport, London, England

Edinburgh, Scotland

Glasgow, Scotland

Edinburgh, Scotland

REPRISE: 2002:

THE GOLDEN ERA