Marabou Stork Nightmares: A Novel [Hardcover]

Irvine Welsh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1996

In a hospital room in Edinburgh, Roy Strang lies in a coma--which doesn't save him from reliving the sordid developments that brought him to the state. He seems at times to be engaged in a strange quest in a surrealistic Africa to eradicate the evil predator-scavenger bird--the marabou stork--before it drives away the peace-loving flamingos from Lake Torto.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When the narrator's polished account of a surreal African safari suddenly gives way to an Edinburgh soccer thug's obscenity-laced vernacular, it's clear that Welsh's unrelenting exploration of the Scottish underclass has undergone an unexpected transmutation. The LSD and heroin of the author's previous works (a story collection, The Acid House; a novel, Trainspotting) have changed into the hospital-bed fantasies and hallucinations of the comatose Roy Strang, but the flashbacked details of his damaged childhood and hooligan's career are as raw and despairing as any Welsh has depicted before. To escape from a bleak public-housing existence, Roy's "genetic disaster" of a dysfunctional family emigrates from the U.K. to South Africa ("Sooth Efrikay" in the novel's endemic Scotch), where young Roy encounters a right-wing, child-molesting uncle as well as the Marabou Stork, a vicious predator-scavenger. Returning home, Roy graduates from abused to abuser. Welsh expertly handles these realistically brutal episodes, from Roy's knifing of a schoolmate just to establish himself, through adult pub-wrecking. Then there's the harrowing secret Roy is trying to repress by imagining, amid ludicrously distracting family visits, a fantasy quest to eradicate the flamingo-killing Stork-"the personification of all this badness... the badness in me." With as good an ear for Scotch as James Kelman and as twisted an imagination as Will Self, Welsh makes his novelist's debut stateside with a darkly hilarious, deeply disturbing but ultimately compassionate book. First serial to Grand Street.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Roy Strang, is dreaming his way through a coma. The novel alternates between a hunt set in Africa for the Marabou Stork (a gruesome, atavistic creature) that he weaves in his mind, and his recollections of his upbringing and youth. His history is marked with violence and rape?experienced both as victim and perpetrator. The storylines are at war, careering off each other in a race to the finish. Though his life is a litany of degradation, the tale of the stork hunt is an attempt to recast himself as a hero, and its completion promises transformation. Roy does not wish to be revived until the tale is told. Welsh (The Acid House, Norton, 1995) writes in the rough gutter-slang of Edinburgh, Scotland, and his phonetic transliterations take some deciphering but this work is well worth the effort. The unsparing, brutal prose is not for the squeamish, but for those with the stomach, this exceedingly original first novel is highly recommended. For all libraries.?Adam Mazmanian, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; First American Edition edition (January 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393038459
• ISBN-13: 978-0393038453
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #617,519 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Irvine Welsh is the author of Trainspotting, Ecstasy, Glue, Porno, Filth, Marabou Stork Nightmares, The Acid House, If You Liked School, You'll Love Work, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs and Reheated Cabbage. He divides his time between Florida, Ireland, and Scotland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular piece of work, April 24, 2000

By 

Ryan Lewis - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marabou Stork Nightmares (Paperback)

Irvine Welsh really struck gold with this novel. I cannot stress enough that you read this book as it is one of the most creative books that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I've read Trainspotting, The Acid House, and now this and I must say it is my favorite. The main character Roy is hard not to like and feel for in his mental struggles between his current bedridden state and his flashbacks/fantasies. The scottish dialect in this novel isn't as strong and hard to understand as many of Irvine's other works so there really is no reason to pass this gem up.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The flowering of a sociopath, May 29, 2000

By 

Mr. Cairene (Cairo, Egypt) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marabou Stork Nightmares (Paperback)

Irvine Welsh doesn't just write words, he directs them, places them and arranges them into attention grabbing, authentic sounding and stylish prose. More amazing is the fact that this whole novel reads like the uncensored thoughts streaming from a brain of a very troubled individual. His writing resembles a film director who combines style and substance into a devestating whole.

He tells the story of Roy Strang, no actually Roy Strang tell the story of Roy Strang. He is lying a coma now, and his story takes place on three different levels of consciousness. When close to the surface, he hears the people around him, circling his hospital bed. But he always wants to go deeper, to escape that pathetic world. The next level of consciousness is his memories, undoctered and vicious, his memories of growing up in the schemes(or projects) of Edinburgh and his uncle's house in South Africa are both morbidly funny and frightening. Deeper still is a bizzare fantasy in the African safaries where hunts his demons personified in a particularly ugly bird called the Marabou Stork.

If you've read Welsh's equally brilliant Filth you'd know that his novels are basically a coat of nihilism covering a deeply tragic core. You may laugh now and then, but there is always a general unease. This is the story of how a funny looking kid with big ears became a social atrocity. And the ending of this tale, which I wouldn't dare reveal here will leave you shaken.

This is a superb novel, that connects like a blow to the gut, and when Roy narrates in reference to his actions "You do this because you think if you're hurting them you can't be hurt." You realise that this seemingly brutal story is infact the story of his redemption.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Different >> But Excellent, April 4, 2001

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Marabou Stork Nightmares (Paperback)

A little more offbeat that the other Welsh works, this one goes into the head of coma-beset thug, Roy Strang. He's passing time in his coma by inventing a fantasy world where he is on a mission in Africa to eliminate the evil predator marabou stork. This world is depicted in a old-fashioned boy's own adventure-style language, however, it keeps getting interrupted by real-life visitors talking to him. This sets him off on reflections on his dysfunctional upbringing and the horrific Scottish slums he comes from. Over the course of the book, Roy reveals his maturation and a transformation from bullied kid to violent "casual," culminating in an awful crime. If it sounds whacked-out, it kind of is, but it all makes some terrible kind of sense when you read it... Welsh demonstrates his usual written pyrotechnics in switching voices back and forth between the upper-crusty tones of the African story with the gritty realistic ramblings he's displayed elsewhere.