Irvine Welsh -- The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs

Back in July, 2005, for those of us who follow these sorts of things, The Scotsman newspaper reported that Scottish author Irvine Welsh's next book would be a romantic work of fiction. "And Welsh," it reported, "whose most famous book, Trainspotting, was once criticised by the novelist Alexander McCall Smith as a classic of Scottish 'miserabilism,' will also largely do away with the sex, drugs and violence that have defined his work to date." More than a year later, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs has arrived and, evidently, The Scotsman was sorely mistaken. Fortunately, Irvine Welsh is still as miserable as he is Scottish. In brief: People either fight or have sex or smoke dope or get drunk or take cocaine on almost every page. Sometimes they do several of these things at once. And regardless of what they're doing, they describe it using the most colorful and inventive profanity imaginable. We follow protagonist Danny Skinner, a troubled young restaurant inspector, as he tries to locate the father he never knew. Along the drink-sodden way, via some convenient and unexplained psychic tear in the Universe, he discovers that a coworker is suffering all of his misfortune by proxy. If Skinner gets into a fight -- and he does so frequently -- someone else bears the bruises in the morning. If he drinks excessively, someone else sweats through the hangover. In other words, this is Welsh's slightly clumsy but entertaining attempt at magic realism. It has less humor and energy than Trainspotting, but so has everything else Welsh has written since the 1993 classic. Readers beware: Just reading this book will give you a hangover. (Chris Kemp) Grade: B