Skagboys Skagboys Skagboys is a 2012 novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. It is a prequel to his 1993 novel "Trainspotting", and its 2002 sequel "Porno". It follows the earlier lives of characters Renton and Sick Boy as they first descend into heroin addiction. When Welsh described the novel he said: "I think I’m going to call it Skag Boys: “skag” is my favourite word for heroin. It's set before they’re into heroin and investigates how the main characters become junkies, the family dynamics, the anxieties of young men. A lot of the fringe characters become more prominent". "I had a
Grits (novel) Grits (novel) Grits is the debut novel by British author Niall Griffiths, published in 2000 by Jonathan Cape. Set in and around Aberystwyth and concerning promiscuity, drugs, alcohol, and petty crime it gained for its author, who lives and works in the town the dubious honorific "the Welsh Irvine Welsh". The novel is largely autobiographical, Griffiths moved to Aberystwyth to research a PhD in post-war British poetry but soon became, as he puts it, an "enthusiastic participator in parties" and dropped out of his studies. Ianto, a character briefly appearing in "Grits" became the anti-hero of Griffith's second novel "Sheepshagger".