The phenomenal success of TRAINSPOTTING made Edinburgh the hottest literary spot on the map. The Scottish beats have infused their writing with a raw, youthful energy and daring that has attracted a wide audience. ACID PLAID includes stories by a host of explosively talented writers, many of whose work hits U.S. shores for the first time here.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
This new anthology of writing from Scotland consists of selections from a number of that country's best writers. In addition to Irvine Welsh, the author of the best-selling novel Trainspotting, the contributors include Duncan McLean, Janice Galloway, and Alan Warner, some of whom are known as the Scottish Beats. The book includes a smattering of just about everything: an essay, a skit, poetry, and fiction. In his introduction, editor Ritchie states that the book aims to indicate the richness and variety, the wit, verve, and range of Scottish literature today. Indeed, these pieces often carry a sharp bite, and a few have language that might ruffle the prudish. Some phrases may be troublesome for American readers, and a bit of editorial work by way of introduction might have made for easier reading. Nevertheless, recommended for all public libraries.?Ronald Ray Ratliff, Chapman H.S. Lib., Kan.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
No fewer than 24 contemporary Scottish writers are represented in this vivid, all-encompassing anthology, poets and essayists included, though most are fiction writers. Familiar names--such as Trainspotting's Irvine Welsh, The New Confession's William Boyd, and Morvern Callar's Alan Warner--mingle with others who deserve to be better known in the US, among them Janice Galloway and A.L. Kennedy, both prize-winning novelists whose stories dispel any misperception here of the current surge in Scottish literature as a predominantly male phenomenon. From Welsh's view in the vernacular of a soccer enthusiast, whose plans for watching the weekend match on TV are modified somewhat when his wife's legs are removed by a high-speed train as they cross the tracks while hurrying home from the pub (``A Fault on the Line'') to Kennedy's New York story of a young woman whose desert dreams and violent fantasies have no room in the ``perfect'' relationship she's enmeshed in (``Rockaway and the Draw''), these are often tales of savagery, whether accidental or suppressed, blackly humorous or between-the-eyes serious. The trademark images of punks and ravers made popular by the Scottish Beats are here as well. But as the anthology makes abundantly clear, these writers claiming Scottish kinship are onto something more universal, poking into the basics of the human condition in a way that makes for uncommonly good reading. A memorable collection, with a crisply contextual introduction by Ritchie. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surreal Redefined,
By "poetasters" (Rhode Island) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Acid Plaid: New Scottish Writing (Paperback)
A fascinating read. I was blown away by "Oneir/Onan: The Seduction of Professor Zero Tolerance" -- that alone is worth the price of the book! Other highlights include a typically funny and disgusting tale from Irvine Welsh and, erm, the "prophetic subway poetry" or what have you.
4.0 out of 5 stars
the beats are back, ye lads and lasses!!!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Acid Plaid: New Scottish Writing (Paperback)
Stream of conciousness writing, wasted days of throwing caution and existential pranksters who take life way too seriously have NOT died, my friends. They have merely moved to the slums on the outskirts of Edinburough. The manic desperation, the hypnotic sexuality and the vague but overpowering ambition of the great ones: Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs have been reborn in a haunting sea of realism and metaphysics, and it's name is Acid Plaid. The emergence of new Scottish street poets and subway prophets like Alan Warner and Duncan McLean give rise to a renaissance of punk, excess, pointless violence and gratuitous sex that so many in our generation, in weariness, have settled upon for the answers to the question of who we are. Irvine Welsh's contribution takes a seething look at the downside of adultery, abuse and falling hopelessly out of love with life...and at the same time it contains some of the funniest passages I've read in my life. A great book. Get it, definitely. Why only four stars out of five? It wore me out..................
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