SOURCE: A review of Ecstasy in New Statesman & Society, Vol. 9, No. 406, June 7, 1996, pp. 37–38.

In the following review, Kane gives Ecstasy a lukewarm appraisal. In contrast to the interpretation of Welsh as a realistic chronicler of the life of the body, Kane finds in Welsh a persistent, pathological dislike of the physical.

If you wanted to cut to the chase, I suppose you could accuse Irvine Welsh of being a chemical determinist. In his new book Ecstasy, taking an E is the defining act that liberates many of his characters from their limiting, destructive selves. It blasts them out of their social orbits, spinning them into wild (and not always) benign possibility.

Brimming with MDMA, the fascistic Cockney nutter Dave falls in love with Samantha, a girl deprived of her arms by a Thalidomide-type birth drug. He joins her in a chain-saw death pact to avenge the corporate crime...