Had Irvine Welsh wrote Train now rather than 30 years ago, he doesn’t think it will be picked up by a mainstream publisher. “Perhaps it will be self-published,” he said of the spicy drug story set in his native Edinburgh that has made his name. “We now have a publishing industry that basically writes into the marketing holes — romance, crime, sci-fi. I do not think Train will comfortably fit any of those holes. Definitely not a romance.

From his home in the city, Welsh says via Zoom, the world of squats and drug drives he sets in the novel has changed. “We’re not really in a street culture, we’re in a media culture. We have taken away many things from children: the right to be