Trainspotting (novel) Trainspotting (novel) Trainspotting is the first novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh, first published in 1993. It takes the form of a collection of short stories, written in either Scots, Scottish English or British English, revolving around various residents of Leith, Edinburgh who either use heroin, are friends of the core group of heroin users, or engage in destructive activities that are implicitly portrayed as addictions that serve the same function as heroin addiction. The novel is set in the late 1980s and has been described by "The Sunday Times" as "the voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and
Irvine Welsh directed his first short dramatic film, "NUTS", which he co-wrote with Cavanagh. The film features Joe McKinney as a man dealing with testicular cancer in post Celtic tiger Ireland. It was released in 2007. Welsh co-directed "The Right to liberty", a chapter of the documentary film "The New Ten Commandments", in 2008. In 2009 Welsh directed the film "Good Arrows" (co-directed by Helen Grace). It was written by Welsh and Cavanagh. The film is about a darts player who suffers from depression which causes him to lose his skill. As well as recreational drug use, Welsh's fiction and non-fiction is