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Glue
Glue
Jan 27, 2026 7:10 AM

Author:Irvine Welsh

Glue

'Welsh is at the top of his game' The Face

'His most readable and memorable novel since Trainspotting' Independent on Sunday

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.

As we follow their lives from the 70s 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.

'His most complete and engaging work to date... arguably, his best book' TLS

'A coming-of-age story carved out with a broken bottle' Elle

Reviews

Wild, brave and funny

—— Sunday Times

Welsh is brilliant at what he does... This is his most readable and memorable novel since Trainspotting

—— Independent on Sunday

His most ambitious, but also his most complete and engaging work to date... arguably, his best book

—— Times Literary Supplement

Full of incident, mad, crackling dialogue, attractively appalling characters and some of the funniest and rudest sex scenes I have read since Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint

—— Sunday Times

With razor-sharp dialogue, a powerful odour of ordinary desperation and an incisive understanding of what makes these men's friendship tick, Welsh is at the top of his game

—— The Face

Welsh slams back into form with his sixth book - all brutal sentimentality and bleak, edgy humour... You have a coming-of-age story carved out with a broken bottle

—— Elle

Easily his best book since the one that made his name

—— Independent on Sunday

I've never felt so attached to characters as I did in that book and have definitely never stayed awake all night sobbing after reading a book, but I did when I read that

—— Hollie McNish , Good Housekeeping

The Sea, The Sea is both a novel entirely about the era in which it was written and one that reflects – at an angle – the place and time we are living in… it is a joy to read: a rollicking story that seems endlessly to be building towards some awful, hilarious, frightening conclusion

—— Daisy Johnson , Harper's Bazaar

By the end I was impressed, moved and touched

—— Spectator

A bittersweet love story

—— Tatler

You'll soon be as captivated by Roza's colourful tale as Chris is

—— SHE

A bitter-sweet story of missed opportunities

—— Good Book Guide

Keen-eyed and funny

—— Victoria Lane , Daily Telegraph

There is so much truth here, as Tyler strips away the issue of ethnic difference to reach the heart of her complex and compelling matter

—— Julie Wheelwright , Indenpdent

Warm and optimistic, this story about adoption raises issues of belonging and identity

—— Bel Mooney , The Times

Tyler possesses a remarkable ability to render the ordinary extraordinary, which makes reading her work like tucking into tea and cake on a cosy Sunday afternoon

—— Kathryn Mille , Time Out

Full of excruciatingly comic set-pieces, this is an immensely satisfying, yet subtle, read

—— Simon Humphreys , Mail on Sunday

Tenderly observed and lifted by humour, Digging to America is a complex novel that asks if anyone can ever truly fit in. In answering that question Ms Tyler has woven her magic once again

—— Economist

As in her previous books, the writing here makes for wholesome, comforting fare, spiced as always with urbane wit and a knack for nailing the small truths behind fine details

—— Globe and Mail

In Digging to America, Tyler exhibits her knack for softening the sharp edges of human contact, showing people with smudges of vulnerability on their faces as they dig toward each other

—— Toronto Star

Her prose is at once unpretentious and elegiac, like a photograph by Dorothea Lange, and her imagery has staying power

—— New York Times

Deft and wise prose... [Tyler's] skill at turning everyday occurrences into amazing storytelling gets better and better

—— Sunday Express

Redemptive

—— Daily Telegraph
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