"Six Authors in Search of a Character, Part 3: Irvine Welsh" in ZYZZYVA

The third installment of my ongoing essay series in ZYZZYVA Literary Magazine is now live––the series is called "Six Authors in Search of a Character" and it explores the unusual and complicated psychology of writers portraying on screen characters they created in print. Part 3 analyzes Irvine Welsh's appearance as "Mikey Forrester" in TRAINSPOTTING, where he plays the role of a drug dealer who torments his actual alter-ego, a process which feels like a literalization of the koan-ish observation, "you are the cause of your own suffering." If you missed the first and second installments of the series (on Stephen King's appearance in CREEPSHOW and Richard Wright's role in NATIVE SON, you can read them here).