Rebecca Navarro, best-selling authoress of Regency romances, suffers a paralysing stroke. Assisted by her nurse, Rebecca plans her revenge on her unfaithful husband. But will Freddy Royle, hospital trustee, celebrity and necrophiliac, thwart those plans? Dave Thornton, soccer thug, has lost his heart to flawed beauty Samantha Worthington. Together they go in search of the man who marketed the drug that crippled her - in order to cripple him. Lloyd from Leith has a transfiguring passion for the unhappily married Heather. Together they explore the true nature of house music and chemical romance. Will their ardour fizzle and die in the grim backstreets of Edinburgh, or will it ignite and blaze like a thousand suns? (19961129)
Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance
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A pure writer, producing staggering feats of storytelling... The skill of a master (Independent )
Welsh writes with a skill, wit and compassion that amounts to genius. He is the best thing to have happened to British writing for decades (Sunday Times )
Urgent, violent, bleakly funny prose (Nick Hornby Times literary Supplement )
Welsh's world is spiky, trashy and brutal. It is also brilliant, hilarious and infused with a kind of punkish morality (Sunday Express )
The poet laureate of the chemical generation (Face )
Welsh writes with a skill, wit and compassion that amounts to genius. He is the best thing to have happened to British writing for decades (Sunday Times )
Urgent, violent, bleakly funny prose (Nick Hornby Times literary Supplement )
Welsh's world is spiky, trashy and brutal. It is also brilliant, hilarious and infused with a kind of punkish morality (Sunday Express )
The poet laureate of the chemical generation (Face )
Book Description
Now a major motion picture. (20031017)
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First Sentence
Rebecca Navarro sat in her spacious conservatory and looked out across the bright, fresh garden. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Rebecca Navarro sat in her spacious conservatory and looked out across the bright, fresh garden. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Oh, my god. I just have to say that these stories (Specially "The Undefeated") are so great. I'm not a critic, so I won't write anything revolutionary, but this book got into my heart almost as deep as Trainspotting. I read it in spanish (which is not an easy feat) but it didn't loose any sense to me. It's so much fun, and great writing that I almost wish I had never touched it: I felt so bad when it was ending. YOU MUST READ IT, YOB! LAS! See ya in Edina!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
The author of Trainspotting, which became a major movie hit this winter, brings us three provocative and sometimes beautiful love stories in his newest novel, Ecstasy.
The first story, "Lorraine Goes to Livingston: A Rave and Regency Romance," is about Rebecca, the oblivious romance novelist, Perky, her adulterous worm of a husband, Lorraine, a part-time raver/part-time nurse, and Freddy Royle, a necrophilic. It is full of relationships starting and ending, self-awareness (or the lack of) and is shocking and entertaining. But then again, how could a nice love story with bouts of bestiality and necrophilia be boring?
In "Fortune's Always Hiding: A Corporate Drug Romance" a nasty pharmaceutical company markets a little-tested drug, Tenazadrine, which produces results not unlike the birth defects caused by Thalidomide in the'50s and '60s. This is probably the most disturbing story in Ecstasy, and leaves you pondering the fine line between justice and revenge. You won't know what to think of Dave, whose loyalty and love for his deformed girlfriend, Samantha, tries to compensate for his less desirable traits such as violence and homophobia.
The third, and last, story will blow your mind like double-dipped tabs of LSD. "The Undefeated: An Acid House Romance" is both funny and clever. Lloyd Buist, a laid-back druggie, is endearing with his Alice In Wonderland-esque logic ("Ah don't know if I'm thinking this or saying it or both at the same time, but you can sometimes say one thing while thinking another. So if I'm saying this, actually saying this out loud, what am ah thinking? Eh? Ah ha!").
This is the perfect book to save you from summertime apathy. Ecstasy is a must read for those who dn't mind deciphering European English (what the hell do sentences like "Ah'm away doon tae the deli fir mair ay they strawberries, eh" mean?) and are not offended by profanity, drug use and sex.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I would strongly have to disagree with the slatings which this novel has received. I would undoubtedly class this as one of Irvine Welsh's best. The book focuses on subjects so hideously disturbing and original that you just can't help admiring welsh for his creative originality. Unlike Trainspotting,this book often tends to steer away from the grim reality of drug abuse and focuses on love, true friendship and the positive effects of ecstasy. Although much of the book at times seems to be unecessarily violent, Welsh is meerly using this as a decoy to bring to light the angst ridden characters which dominate the story. This book is a definate must for those who can handle reading about reality, it certainly isn't for the faint hearted that's for sure and if it's a bit of pleasant escapism your after, forget it. This is a book for the e generation who will certainly be able to relate to this superb piece of modern day wtiting.
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3.7 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
By no means perfect but extremely funny and unpredictable
There is something about the immediacy of Welsh's writing and the narration of his characters which makes anything he has done compulsively readable. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Culture Vulture
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great, but not his best.
As a writer I love Irvine Welsh, his stories have always rung true for a particular time in my life living in Scotland. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Shinigami Sam
4.0 out of 5 stars
worth reading
i bought this to read the story of Freddy Royle - there is a very obvious Jimmy Savile connection to this story - but it begs the question which came first the rumours or the... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Betty Mulholland
5.0 out of 5 stars
I read it in 2 days
This book is great. I could not put it down. For me, each story was better than the last. People that give it bad reviews have either not lived or not loved. Read more
Published on 1 April 2011 by diplomat
2.0 out of 5 stars
well written, highly disturbing
Irvine Welsh is a brilliant writer, but the content was too disturbing to enjoy the book. I made it through 2/3 stories before it made me feel too sick to finish. Read more
Published on 19 Dec 2010 by neonflash
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ecstasy
Not a patch on his last collection of shorts (Acid House).
Very forgetable in my opinion, not his best work by a long shot.
Give it a miss.
Very forgetable in my opinion, not his best work by a long shot.
Give it a miss.
Published on 10 May 2010 by Mr. M. Harvey
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fortune's Always Hiding
I'm half way through reading Ecstasy, after having read Trainspotting and seeing the film. I've also seen the film Green Street and can't stop seeing the parallels between the... Read more
Published on 28 Jan 2008 by Lotte
5.0 out of 5 stars
it's not just about ecstasy
I can see why people would be dissappointed with this book if they wanted an insight into MDMA. The real focus in the book are the characters, not the drug. Read more
Published on 14 Feb 2007 by Rob O
3.0 out of 5 stars
astonishing yet strangely wonderful
I'd never read one of Irvine Walsh's books before this one but my sister had recommended him many a time so I thought I'd attempt it. Read more
Published on 14 Oct 2005 by "indiechicuk"
5.0 out of 5 stars
Extremely Accurate
I picked up Ecstasy while wandering around Europe and honestly only bought it for the title...I used to be into the whole lifestyle and I wanted to see how another author would try... Read more
Published on 16 Dec 2001 by Matt McKinney
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