Ecstasy (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

With three wickedly funny and harrowing tales of love and its ups and downs, the ever-surprising Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting, virtually re-invents a new genre of fiction: the chemical romance. In "Lorraine goes to Livingston," a best-selling author of Regency romances, paralysed and bedridden, plans her revenge on a gambling, whoring husband with the aid of her nurse, Lorraine. In "Fortunes's Always Hiding," flawed beauty Samantha Worthington enlists a smitten young soccer thug to find the man who marketed the drug that crippled her from birth - in order to give him a taste of his own disastrous medicine. In the upbeat final tale, "The Undefeated," we experience the transfiguring passion of the miserably married young yuppie Heather and the raver Lloyd from Leith - a grand affair played out to a house music beat.

From Publishers Weekly

The ecstasy involved in rave-writer Welsh's three novellas at first may seem exclusively the chemical kind ("e," "ecky," "MDMA") downed at Dionysian dance parties by alienated post-Thatcher youth and nearly every character here. But Welsh's latest misfits are also looking (however incoherently) for a higher ecstasy too: in a half-articulated credo, one eckied-out character thinks: "you had to party harder than ever.... It was your duty to show that you were still alive. Political sloganeering and posturing meant nothing; you had to celebrate the joy of life." Meantime, though, they are hooked on other drugs, petty crime, pub brawls, casual/kinky sex and bodice-buster novels. "Lorraine Goes to Livingston: A Rave and Regency Romance," the weakest of the three novellas, mixes Will Self-style grotesque social satire with an increasingly sick parody of trashy paperbacks. Welsh's own version of true love goes even farther over the top in "Fortune's Always Hiding" as a sociopathic Cockney criminal falls for a woman deformed by a thalidomide-like drug and they take gruesome revenge on its corporate manufacturers. The last and best, "The Undefeated," presents modern love in Edinburgh as a "chemical romance" between the party-addict Lloyd, whose acidified life consists only of weekend house bashes, and straight-peg Heather, who trades her bougie existence for e. Ecstasy exports Welsh's pitch-perfect slang, black humor and surreal imagination in an exhilarating, mutable style like the written equivalent of techno music, cutting right through to his characters' lives.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; 8th edition (August 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393315819
• ISBN-13: 978-0393315813
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #363,440 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Modern Love, August 26, 1999

By	A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I'd heard this collection of "three tales of chemical imbalance" weren't so good, so it was a pleasant surprise to find myself quite enjoying them all. Within each of the three "stories" there are multiple plot lines running with entertaining characters abounding. A listing of the subtitle of each story hints at this: "A Rave and Regency Romance," "A Corporate Drug Romance" and "An Acid House Romance." Amok with explicit drugs and sex, these are clearly love stories for youth, and yet they all celebrate rather traditional notions of love and falling in love. I found the combination very pleasing, although others might find it a bit forced perhaps even cheezy. What is lacking is the dense dialect of Trainspotting which might make it more accessible reading for some.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The agony of Ecstasy, August 24, 1996

By A Customer

I read Trainspotting (first) and Ecstasy (second) while travelling through Ireland and Scotland this summer. I was intrigued by the endorsement of Trainspotting which claimed it to be "The best book ever written by any man or woman -- deserves to sell more copies than the Bible." I figured I'd give it a try. I'm glad I did. Trainspotting was one of the best books I've read this year. A truly stomach-turning trip through the world of heroin addiction. Ecstasy, on the other hand, seems like a re-hash of a topic Mr. Welsh has visited too often (even though this is only his fourth book.) Ecstasy squeezes 3 stories into less than 275 pages (at least in the UK version.) That leaves you with under- developed characters and some who are too far-fetched to believe. The stories just seem to start and not really go anywhere -- and then just end. What's more, Ecstasy's descriptions of the effects of drugs fall short of Trainspotting's heroin ride. Irvine Welsh is a talented writer, but it doesn't show as much in this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Addictive, April 23, 2004

By	gonn1000 (Portugal) - See all my reviews

Irvine Welsh, of "Trainspotting" fame, delivers three edgy stories that are somehow related to one single element: ecstasy. In "Lorraine Goes to Livingston", the author offers a multi-layered, sometimes confusing tale about love and the twisted nature of some people. "Fortune`s Always Hiding" is a powerful and unsettling revenge story that resembles Quentin Tarantino`s movies at parts, due to its explicit violence, badass characters, non-linear storytelling and a very acid sense of humor. "The Undefeated" focuses on the relationship between a yuppie woman and a bohemian, messed up man. Altough far from a masterpiece, "Ecstasy" is a fun and enticing read nonetheless, presenting an author with a personal, recognizable, harsh, direct and gritty style. This book is not for everyone, but those who enjoy this kind of stuff may find it compelling.

Deserves a look.