Glue is a 2001 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Scottish

Scottish people

The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

 writer Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life...

. Glue tells the stories of four Scottish boys over four decades, through the use of different perspectives and different voices. It addresses sex, drugs, violence, and other social issues in Scotland, mapping “the furious energies of working-class masculinity in the late 20th century, using a compulsive mixture of Lothians dialect, libertarian socialist

Libertarian socialism

Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production...

 theory, and an irresistible black humour.” The title refers not to the abuse of

Inhalant

Inhalants are a broad range of drugs whose volatile vapors are taken in via the nose and trachea. They are taken by volatilization, and do not include drugs that are inhaled after burning or heating...

 adhesive

Adhesive

An adhesive, or glue, is a mixture in a liquid or semi-liquid state that adheres or bonds items together. Adhesives may come from either natural or synthetic sources. The types of materials that can be bonded are vast but they are especially useful for bonding thin materials...

s, but the metaphorical glue holding the four together through changing times.

The four main characters are Terry Lawson (Juice Terry), Billy Birrell (Business Birrell), Andrew Galloway (Gally), Carl Ewart (DJ N-Sign). We first meet them as small children in 1970, then as teenagers around 1980, as young men around 1990, and as men in their late thirties around 2000. The novel is split into five different sections.

Main characters

• Carl “The Milky Bar Kid” Ewart: Carl is, along with Billy, one of the four boys to have a stable family environment. This makes him one of the group’s most normal and well-adjusted members. His father, Duncan, instilled both a love of music and strong code of ethics in his son from a very young age. Carl is very philosophical and open minded, despite sometimes being self-centered and arrogant. He is close to his mates, especially Gally. He is called “The Milky Bar Kid” because of his white-blond hair. He eventually strikes it big as a DJ and his nickname becomes N-SIGN Ewart.

• Terence Henry “Juice Terry” Lawson: Terry is a self-centered waster whose main interests are sex and drinking. His father Henry deserted the family when he was a young child, fueling a life long hatred for the man. He also hates Walter Ulrich, the German man his mother married after his father left. He is very disrespectful to his mother and is very sexist. In the later parts of his life, he supports himself through theft and being a dole-mole. Terry is very arrogant and insults everyone, even his close friends. Despite his faults, he is a caring and faithful friend. His nickname Juice Terry is derived from the job he had as a teenager selling juice in the scheme.

• Andrew “Gally” Galloway: Gally is the heart and soul of the group, yet suffers from an intense self-hatred. His father was a criminal who was incarcerated throughout Gally's childhood. Because of this, Gally became the man of the house, looking out for his mother and sister. He is a gentle and caring person, but is sometimes prone to fits of anger. He serves two terms in jail during the novel, and becomes HIV positive through using heroin to combat his depression
  Clinical depression
  Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
  
  . His depression is fueled by his relationship with Gail, a woman he lost his virginity to after being released from juvenile hall at 18 and subsequently impregnated. He married Gail, but their relationship suffered due to her infidelity. She takes his daughter from him after she is injured during one of their fights. All this leads to drastic actions by Gally which split the group apart.

• Billy “Business” Birrell: Billy is the most driven member of the group. He is very honorable and believes in fairness. As a youth he gets involved in amateur boxing and eventually goes pro, becoming very successful, in part because of his involvement with some shady gangsters. Billy becomes the most successful member of the group, eventually running a bar after retiring from boxing. This, however, estranges him from his old friends.

Trivia

The famous anorexic

Anorexia nervosa

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...

 singer Juice Terry meets is called Kathryn Joyner, a reference to Karen Carpenter

Karen Carpenter

Karen Anne Carpenter was an American singer and drummer. She and her brother, Richard, formed the 1970s duo The Carpenters. She was a drummer of exceptional skill, but she is best remembered for her vocal performances of idealistic romantic ballads of true love...

. Carl Ewart’s nickname is derived from a well-known Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 pub

Public house

A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

called the Ensign Ewart and because he was featured in a newspaper for making a Nazi salute after a football match whilst drunk as a young man.