mark renton has it all hes goodlooking young with a pretty girlfriend and a place at university but theres no room for him in the 1980s thatchers government is destroying workingclass communities across britain and the postwar certainties of full employment educational opportunity and a welfare state are gone when his family starts to fracture marks life swings out of control and he succumbs to the defeatism which has taken hold in edinburghs grimmer areas the way out is heroinits no better for his friends spud murphy is paid off from his job tommy lawrence feels himself being sucked into a life of petty crime and violence the worlds of the thieving matty connell and psychotic franco begbie only sick boy the supreme manipulator of the opposite sex seems to ride the current scamming and hustling his way through it allskagboys charts their journey from likely lads to young men addicted to the heroin which has flooded their disintegrating community this is the 1980s a time of drugs poverty aids violence political strife and hatred but a lot of laughs and maybe just a little love a decade which changed britain for ever the prequel to the worldrenowned trainspotting this is an exhilarating and moving book full of the scabrous humour salty vernacular and appalling behaviour that has made irvine welsh a household name