Can Nothing Save Us? by Irvine Welsh review: 'new horizons'
After several hundred pages of engrossing character and story development, Irvine Welsh’s new US-set novel descends into farce, writes Malcolm Jack
A year ago, Irvine Welsh was promoting his novel Men In Love, the latest and arguably best addition yet to the expanding Trainspotting universe – now comprising not just books, films and short stories, but even a musical. However, the cancellation in recent days of the incongruously jazz-handing song-and-dance stage show based on the six-million-selling Edinburgh author’s insalubrious tale of Leith heroin addicts – following savage reviews and poor ticket sales – suggests he may finally be running out of road when it comes to cashing in on his oldest and still by far best-known work. Apt, then, that Welsh’s newest novel should see him explore new horizons - a new country and new characters. Heck, he’s even found a fresh vice to bestow upon a couple of them.
Can Nothing Save Us? trades Leith for the bright lights of Las Vegas, and swaps thick Embra slang for the equally impenetrable lingo of contemporary American youth (for “likesay”, “skag” and “barry”, insert “no cap”, “molly” and “bussin”). Welsh has lived in Miami for long spells in recent years, and his literary journey into the dark heart of modern America was perhaps overdue. This one was inspired by an extended trip – with among others Scottish superstar DJ Calvin Harris – to Sin City, for an exploration of the vapid hedonism of the city’s electronic dance music (EDM) scene.
Vietnam vet and retired lawyer George and his actress wife Molly are a pair of wealthy, aged pseudo-hippies with a weird penchant for drinking their own urine (a good setup for a gag involving a jug of misidentified apple juice, if nothing else). Their slacker grandson Luke lives in their pool house, chasing a vacuous life of sex, drugs and clubbing, in which he and his friends seek shelter from the rising storm of late-stage capitalism. A mysterious stranger moving in next door precedes an apocalyptic finale of literal murder on the dancefloor.
By Welsh’s own admission in the acknowledgements at the end, this novel was such a “mess” at one stage that it was abandoned, before being resurrected as a TV project (it’s already been optioned for the screen). It reads like a kind of disclaimer for the final quarter of the novel, which descends into a complete farce of revelations, revenge, pill popping, violence, suicide and general mayhem that comes as a jolting disappointment after several hundred pages of engrossing character and story development.
In the blur, Welsh tries to make a salient point about the hopeless despair of the USA today, and about the spirits and lives crushed by tech and social media, right-wing news outlets, mass shootings and gaping inequality. In the words of one character: “Everyone is dissatisfied. Democracy over. A confused citizenry reduced to helping rich egomaniacs build fiefdoms.” Fertile ground for an author of such sharp wit and class consciousness as Welsh, yet demanding of a much more caring hand than the one with which he hurriedly sweeps Can Nothing Save Us? to its luridly dissatisfying conclusion.
Can Nothing Save Us? by Irvine Welsh, Vintage, £20. Irvine Welsh is appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 16 August
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