The third and most willfully irreverent novel yet from Scotland's
answer to William Burroughs, Hubert Selby Jr., and, arguably,
Howard Stern. Here's a long howl of hatred and misogyny uttered at
full foulmouthed throttle by Bruce Robertson, an Edinburgh police
detective whose investigation of a presumably racially motivated
murder only intermittently distracts him from routine pursuits of
extramarital sex, illegal drugs, and officially sanctioned mayhem.
Though he's nominally a member of the establishment, Bruce has all
the qualities one hopes for in an Irvine Welsh character: he's
loud, boorish, xenophobic, racist, sexist, alcoholic, stridently
profane, and tormented by flaming eczema (afflicting his
not-so-private parts). Oh, and there's a tapeworm - which
occasionally takes over the narrative when Bruce himself isn't
speaking from his gut, as does also estranged wife Carole, a
basically normal human who hopes for a reconciliation but doesn't
neglect to take a lover in the meantime. This latter fact is
skillfully made crucial to the rather busy plot, which is nicely
varied by Bruce's embattled relationships with disapproving
superiors, Racial Awareness sensitivity training, and the willing
wives of his fellow officers. The relentlessly confrontational book
comes to raucous life in its more abusive and violent scenes
(Bruce's sexual exploitation of a teenaged hooker; a Rabelaisian
"holiday" in Amsterdam; a bit of bestiality, involving Bruce's
favorite prostitute and a collie named Angus, that goes hilariously
awry). But it founders when Welsh gives his loutish antihero
unconvincing moments of reflection ("I feel entrapped by my lust,
but when I actually get round to doing it, it just seems so
pointless and tedious"), and especially when, in the overcrowded
closing pages, the sources of Bruce's pathology are located in his
memories of a grotesque father and of a first love who was killed
by lightning. Some marvelous writing, but little of substance that
Welsh hasn't already done better, notably in Trainspotting (1996)
and the superb Marabou Stork Nightmares (1996). One wonders if he
has written himself out. (Kirkus Reviews)
With the festive season almost upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson is winding down at work and gearing up socially - kicking off Christmas with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam. There are irritating flies in the ointment, though, including a missing wife, a nagging cocaine habit, a dramatic deterioration in his genital health, a string of increasingly demanding extra-marital affairs. The last thing he needs is a messy murder to solve. Still it will mean plenty of overtime, a chance to stitch up some colleagues and finally clinch the promotion he craves.
But as Bruce spirals through the lower reaches of degradation and evil, he encounters opposition - in the form of truth and ethical conscience - from the most unexpected quarter of all: his anus. In Bruce Robertson, Welsh has created one of the most corrupt, misanthropic characters in contemporary fiction and has written a dark, disturbing and very funny novel about sleaze, power, and the abuse of everything. At last, a novel that lives up to its name.
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