The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs [Paperback]

Before I get into the meat of this review, let me just get this statement out of the way: Irvine Welsh is, flat-out, a brilliant writer, matching deep-seated insights into his characters with a prose style that could make a Wendy's menu look interesting (well, moreso) and even when his plots drag a bit his gift for crafting memorable, quotable dialogue and penetrating inner monologues is more than enough to keep pages turning. His latest, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, is (cliche alert) a somewhat more mature work than such early Welsh classics as Trainspotting and Filth, but still quintessential Welsh all the way: intelligent, profane, and all-around bizarre. There are still plenty of depictions of sex, boozing, and drug use, peppered with the usual heavy dose of naughty language, and topped off near the end with a (sexual) set piece so disturbing it almost made me lose my lunch all over some fellow commuters on the train ride home. Beneath its rampant vulgarity, though, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs is sort of a quietly devastating story, exploring the darker recesses of the human mind without getting too bogged down in the results to have a sense of humor about it.

The two principal characters (and, to a lesser extent, some of the ancillary characters) are both well-fleshed out and multi-dimensional, helped by Welsh's decision to jump back and forth between third- and first-person narrative. After a brief prologue establishing the circumstances surrounding his conception, we're first introduced to Danny Skinner, a fatherless young restaurant inspector in Edinburgh living a somewhat typical aimless twenty-something life filled with sex, drugs, and an almost unfathomable amount of alcohol. Danny's life is going along just fine until he makes the acquaintance of Brian Kibby, a virginal, comically innocent 21-year-old model-railroad enthusiast who takes a job in Skinner's office. It doesn't take Skinner long to develop the sort of burning, irrational hatred for Kibby that's all the more intense because he can't adequately explain its source (I think most of us have felt that way about somebody), and that's when things really get weird. After a while, the negative effects of Skinner's dissolute lifestyle-hangovers, weight gain, the pain resulting from being raped-all start to take their toll on Kibby, whose physical deterioration only adds to the emotional toll of years of ostracism by his peers. In turn, the previously chaste Kibby sees his thoughts turning progressively darker, starting with a humorous struggle to control his urge to pleasure himself and eventually coalescing into a lethal combination of lust, spite, and bitterness, the latter two directed mainly at Skinner.

It would be easy to make the sex-obsessed, almost perpetually drunk and cynical Skinner a simple villain and the diffident, self-effacing Kibby a good guy, but Welsh ensures that we see them both from as many angles as possible, to the point that I for one found myself identifying mostly with Skinner, even if we don't have all that much in common. Skinner really is pretty thoughtful and even occasionally sensitive beneath his cynicism, and he is the kind of alpha-male guy people tend to like to be around, while Kibby is the type of nerdy, snivelling little sissy you just want to punch in the face. Through these two, we see alienation approached from two seemingly opposite poles, as Kibby is still grappling with the effects of a childhood filled with rejection while Skinner is steadily coming to realize that his cynicism and substance addictions have prevented him from forming any real relationships. Skinner's attempt to find out his father's identity weighs heavily on the proceedings as he tries to figure out the source of his self-destructive compulsions, but this isn't some cliched, sappy "I drank because my daddy abandoned me" story. As usual with a Welsh story, people's motives and drives are harder than that to determine, leaving one to wonder just where free will ends and determinism starts. Even the supernatural elements that creep in about halfway through the book, dealing with a bizarre hex that Skinner seems to hold over Kibby, are integrated into the larger story rather than taking it over, keeping the focus on the inner turmoil of the two protagonists as they go through some profound and not entirely explicable life changes.

As a couple of others have pointed out on this site, the book's twist revelation near the end isn't all that hard to determine, although even that isn't quite as clear-cut as it seems. That's not even really the point, though, as The Bedroom Secrets isn't really a plot-oriented novel anyway. As is typical with Welsh, it's more about getting drawn into the world and the minds of his characters, which he always manages to make fascinatingly skewed yet somehow lifelike. If you're a fan of Welsh in particular or unconventional literature in general, I can't imagine you not liking this one.

A new novel from Irvine Welsh is always welcome, and after revisiting familiar territory in "Porno" it's nice to see him take a stab in a new direction, even if it's not entirely successful. This one is sort of a warped take on the Dorian Gray theme, with two young Edinburgh men sinking into a bitter rivalry that manifests itself in, believe it or not, a strange curse of transferrence: All the ill effects of the drink, drugs, and sex that are the habits of incorrigible Danny Skinner manifest themselves not in Skinner but in his rival, the nerdy and introverted Brian Kibby. As the truth begins to dawn on him, Kibby vows revenge.

Unfortunately, the writing here just isn't up to par with some of Welsh's other works. The multiple narrators he used to great effect in "Porno" appear again here, but in "Bedroom Secrets" he handles them less deftly. Minor characters appear, are introduced by first and last name, give some details of their day, narrate about eight paragraphs of the story, and then disappear, never to be heard from again. What's more, Welsh introduces an additional, omniscient narrator, who relates the events from a perspective outside that of any of the characters -- only to drop back into one of the character's first-person narratives in an italic aside, then drop back out again. On the whole, it becomes a case of "too many cooks."

Welsh doesn't rely so heavily on the Scots dialect he has become famous for. While this was a great choice -- he's in danger of stereotyping himself -- he's obviously less at home with a "straight" narrative. Much of it seems forced, and it's plagued by odd turns of phrase and strained, mixed metaphors ("Skinner felt something cold bite into him, like a giant insect was crushing his torso in its jaws" -- a particularly cold insect?). The book could have benefited from another round of rewrites.

And from time to time Welsh reverts to type, as if he feels compelled to remind his audience that he is, after all, the Bad Boy of Scottish Literature. When these interludes of grotesque excess appear -- the bodily functions, the cartoonish sexual anatomies of the elderly, the anal gang-rape, necrophilia -- Welsh handles them with aplomb and they don't fail to bring a smile to your face, if you've got that type of mind. But they feel tacked on, as if a giddy schoolboy were forced to write a mature novel but kept being driven to giggling distraction.

And as for the plot? As others have commented here, the big reveal about Skinner's missing father is predictable not too far into the book, but I for one didn't see all the way to where Welsh was going with it. By the end of the book I was satisfied. Still, this is a flawed work. Welsh fans will doubtless enjoy it, and casual readers of his other works will be happy to find that this isn't a total re-hash, but as a first exposure to Welsh's work this novel is likely to leave you scratching your head.

It is always nice to see an author do something a little different. Welsh still uses some of his same old tricks with the main stage being Leith, (we do come to all the way to California this time) but this book does not bog you down in the language where Americans have to sound out every sentence until you get used to the style. This is not "Trainspotting" part 48. I have tried to read everything Welsh has written. I think he is brilliant. This is not his best work, but if you are a fan, you will love to see how he has progressed and grown as a writer. If you are new to Welsh, this is one of his easier reads and might not be a bad choice for a first experience. I personally enjoyed the storyline, but I did have it figured out pretty much half way through the book. I won't spoil it, but I normally can't see too far where an author is going. Personally for me though, when I get a Welsh book, I don't want to put it down, and am bummed out when it is finished, and I felt that way about "Chefs" as well.

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