Breakfast on Pluto - Patrick McCabe

I was curious about this book as I had enjoyed the film, which I remembered as quite quirky and upbeat, but either I had misremembered the film, or the source material was a lot darker. The central character, a transvestite prostitute obsessed by the idea of his true mother, comes across as extremely fragile and delusional, and the political situation in Northern Ireland is more central to the story than I'd remembered, with the fate of the trio of friends seeming to portray possible outcomes of traumatic situations: one is killed, another (the main character) escapes into a fantasy world, and the third eventually moves forward to a healthier future. The writing is witty and tender, however, and the humanity of the characters prevents the often bleak subject matter from becoming depressing.