Skagboys just out for the buzz on drugs, to total junkies. It shows how their attitudes and behaviour start to change as they become more defined by the drug and the culture around it". In 2012, Welsh said the prequel was actually initially written as part of "Trainspotting" but was not used in the published version. He later decided he would either erase his old work or use it in some way, as "he had a fear that he might fall under a bus and leave behind 'half-written stuff' which people would publish". He said, "I just went through it and
John Irving the 1981 O. Henry Prize Stories collection. In 1985, Irving published "The Cider House Rules". An epic set in a Maine orphanage, the novel's central topic is abortion. Many drew parallels between the novel and Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" (1838). Irving's next novel was "A Prayer for Owen Meany" (1989), another New England family epic about religion set in a New England boarding school and in Toronto, Ontario. The novel was influenced by "The Tin Drum" (1959) by Günter Grass, and the plot contains further allusions to "The Scarlet Letter" (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne and the works of Dickens. In