Skagboys

One of the most significant writers in Britain. He writes with style, imagination, wit and force.

Times Literary Supplement

The voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent.

The Times

It was never going to be light reading, but Welsh's vigour, wit and energy still make it compulsive.

Charlotte Sinclair, Vogue

Welsh's descriptive style is masterful - crude, violent and poetic by turns - but it is dialogue for which he has the Midas touch... Its banter, outrage and razor wit sing off the page. A film, one suspects, isn't far off.

Arifa Akbar, Independent

Welsh performs the mysterious feat of making you think that his characters are real.

Theo Tait, Guardian

Trainspotting may be a masterpiece but Skagboys is the reason the artist painted it, and sometimes that's the most compelling story.

Joanna McGarry, Stylist

Welsh's knack for dialogue - both ineternal and conversational - remains virtuosic and often exhilarating. It makes for characters you can't help but care about even the psychopaths and amoral chancers like Begbie and Sick Boy... Welsh's finest work to date.

Ben Machell, The Times

Like Trainspotting, Skagboys thrusts along with the exuberance of its episodic stories. Welsh hasn't lost his flair for comic set pieces.

Robert Collins, Sunday Times

Welsh somehow manages to be both the Zola of Therese Raquin, and Dostoevsky's Underground Man, ranging between quasi-scientific perspective and a more immersed, troubling one. That he does so for the most part in a furious low Scots vernacular - filthy, or fulthy, and hugely funny at times - may seem remarkable.

Keith Miller, Daily Telegraph

If you too loved the colloquial tangle of Trainspotting, you'll find a similar rhythm in Skagboys.

Andrew Collins, Word Magazine

A brilliantly funny, scary, sweeping novel with all the energy of Welsh's debut, but imbued with a wider sense of political and social engagement.

Doug Johnstone, Independent on Sunday

A cracking read.

Time Out

Quite simply a masterpiece…at least as assured and vibrant in its characterization as Trainspotting, Skagboys is even more on the money politically… This novel more than any other, (including its brilliant predecessor) stands as our spiritual and moral history.

Scotsman

There is enough of what Welsh does well - needle-sharp dialogue, vivid characters and a certainty of place - to make Skagboys his best work in many years…an essential read.

Timothy Mo, Irish Examiner

I ended up charmed beyond measure, if that is the right word for a novel whose odd moments of poignance are regularly booted into touch by death, disillusionment and dereliction.

D J Taylor, Spectator

I’m not sure that in 2012 there will be a single novel, never mind half a dozen, with more verve or nous or life in it than Skagboys. Ye kin pure tell they Booker gadgies’ll no huv the baws but…

Anthony Cummins, Literary Review

Skagboys is a compelling tale…a seriously entertaining piece of work.

Peter Murphy, The Irish Times

It’s brilliant and even more thrilling than its predecessor.

Simon Humphreys, Mail on Sunday

Very good.

Sam Leith, Prospect