Author(s): Irvine Welsh

Fiction

In his first short-story collection since "The Acid House", Irvine Welsh sets us five tricky questions. In "Rattlesnakes" how do three young Americans find themselves lost in the desert, and why does one find himself performing fellatio on another while being watched by the bare-breasted Madeline and two armed Mexicans? Who is the mysterious Korean chef who has moved upstairs to Chicago socialite Kendra Cross, in "The D.O.G.S. of Lincoln Park", and what does he have to do with the disappearance of her faithful pooch Toto? In the title story, can Mickey Baker - an expat English bar-owner ducking and diving on the Costa Brava - manage to keep all his balls in the air: maintaining his barmaid Teresa's body weight at the sexual maximum while attending to the youthful Persephone and dodging his persistent ex-wife and a pair of Spanish gangsters? By what train of events does Raymond Wilson Butler, writing a biography of a legendary US film director in 'Miss Arizona' come to end up as a piece of movie memorabilia?