Alexander Trocchi left Glasgow University with the honours of a brilliant philosophy scholar. In Paris, he founded 'Merlin' - the outstanding literary magazine, wrote novels for Olympia Press, experimented with heroin and became hooked. He is best known for Cain's Book and Young Adam.
It is different from other books, it is true, it has art, it is brave. -- Norman Mailer Mr Trocchi's ideas (or, rather, his gropings toward the distant glow of ideas) are set down in prose that is always clean and sharp and often ferociously alive with poetry. * The New Yorker *