Litquake Presents an Evening with Irvine Welsh September 17, 2012

As part of its warm-up for the 2012 festival, Litquake is proud to announce the return of author Irvine Welsh to a Bay Area stage for a night of conversation, readings, a few laughs (inevitably), as well as video clips, music by DJ Se666undo and a no host bar. Interviewing Mister Welsh will be Alan Black.

This exclusive Bay Area appearance by Welsh celebrates the launch of his new novel Skagboys, an exhilarating and moving prequel to the bestselling phenomenon Trainspotting. Litquake is particularly excited to welcome back Irvine to San Francisco, where he helped launch Litquake with his bold and hilarious readings in 2002 and 2003.

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.

Official Website: http://litquake.org/calendar-of-events/trainspotting-an-evening-with-irvine-welsh