The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins
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''The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins'' is the ninth novel by Scottish writer
Irvine Welsh Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist, playwright and short story writer. His 1993 novel '' Trainspotting'' was made into a film of the same name. He has also written plays and screenplays, and directed several short fil ...
, published in May 2014.


Plot summary

Lucy Brennan is a tough, sadistic, foul-mouthed, bisexual personal trainer. When she’s not finding new ways to insult her clients and hitting Miami’s nightclubs, she diligently tracks her calories with an app called Life map. Lucy leaves a failed romantic evening. She gets caught up in a chase—one gunman and two fleeing homeless victims on the road she finds herself on. In an instant, she reacts and knocks the gunman to the ground, allowing the victims to escape. She becomes a huge media story when the incident is recorded by Lena Sorenson, an overweight, successful, sculptor who is sorely lacking in self-confidence. Lucy's heroic intervention to stop the murderous assault gets a lot of media attention and unsurprisingly, Sorenson’s video turns Brennan into a media sensation. The story competes for airtime and America’s rapt attention with a story about conjoined twins Anabelle and Amy and the should-they/ shouldn’t-they debate about a risky separation operation so Anabelle can have sex with her boyfriend. Lucy Brennan is a body-obsessed personal trainer, and Lena Sorenson is a food-obsessed sculptor. They are both fascinated with shape and form and suffer from trauma-induced ruts. In an exciting twist, it turns out that the two frightened men; Lucy saves from the angry gunman, turned out to be paedophiles. The media focus shifts quickly from the heroine to whether she should have stopped a victim of sexual abuse from taking his revenge. We find this all out just as Lucy and Lena are getting closer, the latter having hired the former as her trainer. What initially appears to be a one-way relationship bordering on stalking, Lena to Lucy, turns out to be much more. Lena gradually becomes Lucy's obsession, and more specifically Lucy's obsession with removing the fat from Lena's body. When Lena keeps sneaking key lime pies, Lucy's behavior turns abusive while her interest in Lena turns perversely sexual. Lena is finally drugged and imprisoned in an abandoned apartment complex after she runs out of patience. Lena finally manages to lose weight thanks to her captor's blueberry and protein shake diet, which leaves her alone in her home gym and treadmill. Despite being cuffed to a pillar and urinating into a bucket, she still looks amazing. Just as America becomes obsessed with the sex lives of the twins, Lucy and Lena become increasingly intertwined with one another’s lives- what starts as a seemingly innocuous. However, this curious friendship soon explodes into an intensely sadomasochistic tango, which leads to kidnapping, commando-regulated diets and murder.


Reception

Similarities have been drawn between this book and Welsh's first novel, '' Trainspotting''. Elena Seymenliyska of ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...
'' wrote, "It's a bit like his debut, ''Trainspotting'' (1993), only instead of the tenements of
Leith Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by ''Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world. The earliest ...
, we're in the condos of
Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which ...
. And in place of heroin addicts, alcoholics and violent psychos, here we have fitness instructors, poseurs – and violent psychos." ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'' published a review of the book on 8 May 2014. In the review Sandra Newman takes issue with the lead character: "The pleasure of the book is spoiled by a radically misjudged narrator." Welsh's novel received a much more positive review from David Pollock, published in ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' on 24 April 2014.


References


External links


Book review: The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins by Irvine Welsh
– ''
The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...
'' Novels by Irvine Welsh Jonathan Cape books 2014 British novels {{2010s-crime-novel-stub