Young Adam

by Alexander Trocchi

Joe is a drifter who works as a hired hand on a barge traveling the Forth and Clyde Canal between Edinburgh and Glasgow. As the story opens, he finds the corpse of a young woman drifting downstream. Was it an accident? Suicide? Murder? As the police investigate and arrest a suspect, it becomes apparent that Joe knew the dead woman and has more information than he's telling. Meanwhile, an unspoken attraction has developed between Joe and the wife of the barge skipper. This first novel by Scottish beat writer Alexander Trocchi is an absorbing existential thriller - a lost gem of world literature reminiscent of Camus, Bukowski, and Burroughs.

"Everyone should read Young Adam." - The Times Literary Supplement

"What Trocchi was about...was testing of boundaries, the eradication of acceptable behavior in the name of something more engaged." - The Bloomsbury Review

Genres: Fiction, Scotland, British Literature, Crime, Thriller, Mystery, Classics

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Alexander Trocchi was a Scottish novelist and editor. He lived in Paris in the early 1950s and edited the literary magazine Merlin, which published Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Christopher Logue and Pablo Neruda, among others. Although he was never published in Merlin, American writer Terry Southern (who lived in Paris from 1948-1952) became a close friend of both Trocchi and his colleague Richard Seaver, and the three later co-edited the anthology Writers In Revolt (1962).

His early novel Young Adam (1954) was adapted into a film starring Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton in 2003.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

This tale of a drifter who has packed in his writing career and who chooses to spend his time faffing about doing manual labour on a barge in Clydebank and seducing his boss’s dowdy wife somehow connected subcutaneously—not because I have at once time accidentally murdered my pregnant ex-girlfriend by pushing her into the Clyde, or because I have seduced my boss’s wife while working on a barge after packing in my writing career—not that, more because books about writers who are fuckups tend to connect with me on some deeper level (who would have thought?) and because this is the sort of novel that romanticises the life of being a writer-drifter figure (albeit in a sexier way in the film version) and so embroils me in its web of wrongness in ways that probably would cause lesser mortals to pack in their lives and take to bobbing around barges on the Clyde seducing the boss’s wife after murdering their pregnant ex-girlfriends in error and not feeling too contrite when an innocent plumber is prosecuted instead of you in a trial that you watch from the wings before drifting off back into the depressing drifter’s life as the book by this lesser-known Scottish experimentalist ends.

[Klius Marichka]

'Молодий Адам' - це наполовину еротика, наполовину трилер, хоча писалося, напевно, як філософський твір.

Пошуки здорового компромісу між прагненням підтримувати зв'язок, знайти хоч якісь точки дотику з іншими людьми і "відкинути всю систему зважувань та оцінок, яку нав'язує загальноприйняте виховання" - лише одна із тем, а може й цілей.

Я дуже ціную такі твори, в яких герої до останньої сторінки балансують на межі між емпатією та засудженням. Не назву багато, але ця з них 😉

От як автору вдається утримувати мою цікавість описуючи сіру буденність, філософствуючи про "недолуге суспільство, схибнуте на своєму моральному очищенні" й навіюючи відчуття приреченості? Ну ок, еротичні сцени, нехай, але ж навіть вони спочатку яскраві й надчуттєві згодом виглядають механічними й депресивними.

От же ж Троккі, от чортяка!

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written sex sucks. Rare is the novel that has detailed sexual congress without me wanting to hurl the fucking thing across the room. If there are two poles—say, Federman and Artaud—that, to me, represent successful writing about sex, then that roughly translates to candid/vulgar/humorous/human/loving (Federman) and explicit/absurd/surreal/gonzo/ludicrous/theatre (Artaud). There is very little between the two poles that can hold my attention. If this tracks as prudish or somehow churlish, fine—I really just don’t give a fuck about reading about fucking.

This clarified, no novel that describes female anatomy as “that creature part of her like a strange night animal” can ever hope to truly puncture this Teflon heart.

To quote Maude Lebowski: “Vagina.”

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book because it is listed as one of the 50 Books For Men. After I finished the book last Thursday, I did not feel any regret buying and reading this. It is bereft of any emotion that reminded me of Albert Camus' The Stranger (except for its absurdism) and James Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice for the plot: a man hired by a couple seduces the wife to be his lover. Oh well, you can say the it is also the plot of many other novels including D. H. Lawrence's classic book Lady Chatterley's Lover but that one is wordy being the old-school literary type of English novels. This one is the modern type: no wasted words, direct storytelling and from a virile man's point of view.

This book is a lost literary masterpiece, some critics say. Alexander Trocchi (1925-1984) made a grand debut in 1954 with his Helen and Desire. His style was reminiscent of Burroughs and other writers belonging to the Beat generation. He also was a heroin addict and battled drug addiction that eventually caused his death.

The book opens with Joe fishing a dead body of a woman floating on the Hudson River one morning. He is with Leslie his business partner. The problem and the tension start when Joe is captivated by Ella, Leslie's girlfriend. So, Joe seduces Ella and they have to do their thing behind Leslie's back. The problem is that they are all floating in the Hudson River going back and forth Glaslow and Edinburg. The barge is small enough to hide the sexual escapades and soon they'll eventually be found out.

A short nice book. I have not seen the movie yet but I find the still photos very interesting what with Ewan McGregor as Joe and Tilda Swinton as Ella.

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rarely seem to pick up Scottish books, so I was pleased to finally get around to reading Young Adam. The book is probably Trocchi's most well-known, and I imagine it was very scandalous at the time it was published (1954), but for the most part I didn't really understand the hype.

The book follows the narrator, Jack, a drifter who is working for Leslie, the skipper of a barge on the canal linking Glasgow and Edinburgh. One day they find the corpse of a young woman floating in the canal, and very soon afterwards Joe begins having an affair with Leslie's wife Ella.

The book's pacing is rather slow, which appears to mirror the slowness of the barge itself that both Leslie and Jack work and live on. The affair between Jack and Ella is in the beginning incredibly fraught with sexual tension, despite the fact it appears to come out of nowhere, and I thought that the relationship was very well portrayed. However, my personal favourite sections of the book were the flashbacks to one of Jack's previous relationships - it helped remove me from the at times monotonous barge setting. I also really enjoyed the fact that the majority of the setting was in Glasgow - it always gives me a good feeling to hear of streets, parks, and other locations that I am personally familiar with.

I enjoyed this book for the most part, but unfortunately the pace was just far too slow for me in the end. I wasn't particularly invested in any of the characters, and although I do like a good unreliable narrator, Jack's narration for much of the early stages of the book felt quite repetitive, particularly in his descriptions of Ella. I found him to be a bizarre and unlikeable character, particularly later in the book, and I just didn't particularly care to read from his perspective (hence why I enjoyed the sections that didn't feel like they were solely focused on him).

Overall this is a decent read, and I'm glad I finally got round to it, but I probably wouldn't read it again. I'd be interested though to see the film adaptation, as I've heard good things about it and it has a very good cast.

[M. Sarki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the film made of this book that starred Tilda Swinton and Ewan McGregor. And because of the great film I read the book which was just as good. I had forgotten all about this particular little novel. I remember it being pretty damn sexy throughout the first half and then, as life generally goes, turning into despair.

[Stephen Durrant · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading what some prominent critics have said about this book, perhaps I have underrated it. But I have given one star for each of the things Scottish novels so frequently have: murder, lots of drinking, and casual, mechanical sex. Alexander Trocchi (1925-1984) is a talented stylist, to be sure. Still, I find that his existentialist style, like Sartre and unlike Camus, doesn't wear well. For example, "I could not think clearly. Everything got in the way the faces, the voices, the grease-spot on the barman's tie, the hair on his pink arms, and his shiny yellow-white collar. I watched his Adam's apple move up and down as he spoke" (p. 42). Maybe that's how intellectuals circa 1950 saw things, but it seems pretty passé in our postmodernist world. Still, "Young Adam" is a good read. Gosh, it starts out with the body of a naked woman being pulled out of the water and ends with an innocent man being sentenced to hang for her murder while the real murderer sits in the audience in court describing stuff existentially. And there are only 140 pages in between. How could one not keep reading?

[Olha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Трилери з головним героєм-сексистом – точно не моє.
⠀
Взагалі я не люблю трилери. Це не мій жанр. Але інколи таки знаходяться причини, чому я їх читаю, а буває навіть люблю. Чому я підтримала книжку «Молодий Адам» від Комубук ще до моменту видання? Перше – книжку (чи головного героя) порівнюють з «Стороннім» Камю, а я дуже полюбила колись ту повість. Тепер думаю, а чи не перечитати? Може і до «Стороннього» тепер буде огида? Друге – за цією книжкою зняли фільм, у якому грають Юен Мак-Грегор, Тільда Свінтон і Емілі Мортімер. Це дуже круті і зараз дуже відомі актори. Та після прочитання не впевнена, чи фільм таки дивитимусь.
⠀
Сюжет: головний герой Джо працює на баржі в Шотландії у однієї сімейної пари. Одного ранку біля їхньої баржі вони помічають мертве майже повністю оголене тіло молодої жінки. Це власне і є початком книжки на найпершій ж сторінці. Так у книжці змішується трилер і любовний роман.
⠀
Що мені не сподобалось? Джо ставиться до жінок як до об’єктів. Він помічає їхні задки, груди, загалом форми тіла. І до того ж він весь такий інтелектуал. А інтелектуали-сексисти – це якось особливо огидно. В ньому палають якісь неконтрольовані сексуальні бажання. Я розумію, що півстоліття тому у Шотландії нічого дивного у такій поведінці чоловіка не було. Та й зараз у маленьких містах і селах таких чоловіків мабуть багато. Та й розумію, що, мабуть, автор книжки і хотів, аби ми відчували огиду до Джо (дуже на це сподіваюсь). Це все не відміняє того, що мені книжку було психологічно важко читати і за цим всім спостерігати.
⠀
Роман тягучий, він не насичений подіями, скоріше роздумами. Книжка передає ту морокливість роботи на баржі, пивних пабів і життя людей соціального класу в маленьких містечках. Чи передає це цікаво і достатньо добре? Навряд. Загалом я не бачу п��ичин, чому ця книжка має бути комусь цікавою. Чомусь впевнена, що є кращі трилери. Але задля того, аби вийти з власної зони комфорту і почитати про самітника Джо, якого жінки цікавлять лише заради сексу, то чому б і ні.
⠀
Прочиталося швидко, якась таємниця трималася довго і навіть, чесно кажучи, взагалі до кінця сюжетно книжка була цікавою, описи і роздуми були непоганими, передавали настрій. 2,5 ⭐️ з 5-ти.

[Ella Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was extremely engaging though increasingly disturbing. Feel somewhat unclean after finishing it. It did make me sad that this is probably how lots of men view the world, but it’s impressive that such a different perspective has been so well captured in writing. I also think it’s really important to explore and take seriously unsavoury aspects of the human condition. Apparently the author himself was a bit of a seedy dude.

Also didn’t realise until like halfway that it was set quite a bit back in the past. Really made me reflect on how women’s rights have advanced. Feeling grateful to not be my husband’s property this morning ✌️

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

текст, котрий міг би бути філософським, проте став чимось іншим: трохи трилеру, трохи еротики, трохи роздумів.
досить дивна суміш з персонажем-сексистом (додайте його в компанію до Жоржа Дюруа, Якова Михайлюка та Степана Радченка)

а ще, подекуди текст нагадує мені Генрі Міллера, тільки зі значно кращим стилем. таким, що незважаючи на неприємного ГГ та сірі будні робітників баржі в маленькому містечку десь в Шотландії, увага не лише не зникла, а трималась до самого кінця

[Ade Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The introduction to this 2008 is by Stewart Home who is probably very well known and respected, but I didn't like it. He wants to place the novel as a 'protopostmodernist' exemplar, and says those who see it as related to The Outsider or as containing an 'existentialist protagonist' are wrong. I think he is wrong. But be that as his may, it is a very 'writerly' book, and even I could go on for ever about it, even with no idea what I am talking about. So just a few comments here.
It is as far as I can see technically perfect. I am not sure after reading the introduction whether a piece of writing's technical and structural qualities are relevant or permissible these days. But I will remain certain, if only in my isolation, that it is a brilliant work of art.
Talking of art, it is also an extraordinarily painterly book (as well as being a cinematic book, not the same thing). Its painterliness is of sounds too, and white gusts of wet (not rain). The canal is convenient to have around as a reference, and the either ends of Clyde quays and Leith quays. Also a bit of an installation itself with its black screwed wakes and floating a spirit of corpse to supplement the actual one, a plot line that carries much - matches, cigarettes especially: many cigarettes, you could write a thesis on the way time is split by them and what each signifies; Joe has nine just looking in the mirror on the second page (and yes, yes, the mirror too is a device and a symbol and a sort of ey too, and therefore a sort of I which is a problematic eye etc etc), but cigarettes smoke, and this is a painterly smokerly novel, Trocchi is the John Constable of cigarette smoke... Smoke over the black waters, with their depths and smells (or is it sounds, or is it a mix of sound and smell, as is suggested by either the writer or the writer behind the writer or the protagonist : there are three narrative voices you will have spotted., smoke as mist, as fog, as just formlessness, as cloud, as cloud that paints into other cloud, leaks, soggy - then the quick lurch into startling sharpness of the triangle motif, see how many you can spot including the one dangling from Saint Vitus the jerky tramp,and cranes and hawsers and one which is identified as definitely a symbol, but not 'of' anything known *which is exactly what symbols should be), and all these gantries and clashes of metal on metal are the hard girders of a structure or structures, so hard that they are as unbending as the mental structure of isolation, of the feeling of self (maybe too Joe feels this in the toilet drinking whiskey, just like any drinker) opposed to the leaking blending into shapelessness, dark depressions and dread which are the colour of wetness, and mud and soggy grass, and rain is never far away. The explicit expositions about mental structure are superb, should be extracted for a handbook, including the closely observed moments of inauthentic communication just to be allowed not to have to communicate, the sexual dance of flirtation etc. Though Joe is indeed a call him what you will, let's say psycho, he is just stripped down human meat below what's beyond the gloomy environs of the Strathlothian line. And forget not that the mirror is cousin to windows, which begin, in the first paragraph to assert their peculiar mystery, and continue throughout, as windows of eyes, of looking intos, of being stared at, look at the starnge confusion and vertigo of the mixing lights in the slat of window at the end in the bar when the daylight wearies out and the figures within thereby become brighter, and look at the incredibly condensed use of apertures among the hurdy gurdy goyaesque carnival of the fair. Water Colours, it does indeed, water colours sound and smell and taste and vision. Of course, a central interrogation is of looking and seeing, and how damned difficult it is to see, like how Joe sees in the young students near the end their joy which they themselves cannot see. And if you say that Joe's way of seeing things is weird, or perverse, or inhuman, or immoral or whatever else you can put together from the official libraries of appropriate res
ponse, don't forget that this is not a novel about a sick mind but about how the mind in general works. The sex too, the sheer buttock celebrating, strong thigh gaping, manly woman, boyish girl, mechanism of it all, and the minute observations of the red and the white and the spider veins at the top of the the thigh, an endless cataloguing of prurient fascination, this look, this ownership in isolation of the whole world that comes through the clouds now and then with a vivid clashing of image down to the atom.

Another thesis could be written about 'yellow', the whole thing is held together by whatever this yellow is, besides its colour but includingg that of course. Fish and flesh,fingerprints on water, this is a truly awful and dreadful novel.

[Serhiy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Хіба ледачий не поріняє “Молодого Адама” зі “Стороннім” Камю і на це є всі підстави. Втім, у Троккі головний герой навіть нікого не вбиває, жертва гине внаслідок нещасного випадку, але обставини такі, що розкажи він правду, в його невинуватість ніхто не повірить. На додачу, у вбивстві звинувачують и приговорють до страти зовсім не причетну людину. Абсурдність в тому, що людина винна за своєю природою, без всякого злочину, своєрідний релігійний чорний гумор Троккі відсилає до відомого біблійного міфу. Принаймні іншої теорії, яка би пояснювала назву роману в мене нема.

[Юра Мельник · Rating 4 out of 5]

Негідник може і пальцем не поворухнути і всеодно залишитись негідником, на тлі удаваної відповідальності за можливий злочин. А питання про те, заслуговує він покарання, чи ні, у такому випадку здасться цілковитим абсурдом.

[Khrystyna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Є мить, коли чоловік та жінка вистежують одне одного, мов тварини. Зазвичай, у більшості ситуацій, що виникають між людьми, це дуже цивілізований різновид вистежування, де кожен рух будь-якої зі сторін можна інтерпретувати по-різному. Це своєрідний захист. Таким способом людина може, так би мовити, до останньо миті вдавати, що не усвідомлювала сексуального значення, яке хтось надає ії рухам; людина не зобов'язана визнавати, що намагалась когось спокусити, поки не впевниться, що на її спокушання відповіли згодою. Однак ніколи не можна бути цілком упевненим, оскільки жінка поводиться не менш обережно, так само не бажаючи відповідати на поклик чоловіка, який не показав достатньо чітко, що його наміри мають сексуальну природу, як і чоловік не бажає однозначно виявляти свої наміри без попередньої згоди. Тому чоловік і жінка фехтують між собою, і це фехтування є надзвичайно делікатним, адже жоден із них не може повністю довіритися іншому в тому, що той чи та не вдаватиме, ніби йому або Їй нічого не відомо про те, що промайнуло між ними. Зрештою, чоловік може виявитися пуританином, а жінці, можливо, просто запраглося, щоб до неї позалицялися, без статевого акту як остаточної мети.

Однак, головний герой Джо, самітник, який працює на баржі, виявився геть не пуританином, і отримував бажаний статевий акт з кожною жінкою взагалі без залицянь :)
Цей твір порівнюють зі «Стороннім» Камю, який я, звісно, не читала. Втім, щось таке стороннє і відчувається у перебігу обставин, які описує Джо, та в його житті, в непричетності до жодної події, хоч якої трагічної, і жодної жінки. На що ж так само стороннім читач (в моїй скромній особі) залишається і до Джо.

[The Armchair Nihilist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fifties existentialist drama survives as a memorial to a criminally wasted talent.

Joe lives and works on a barge with the somewhat mismatched couple Leslie and Ella. Like most young men he's a bit preoccupied with sex although his mind occasionally turns towards more elevated if rather disconnected philosophical musings. Some of these are prompted by the sights he observes along the canal bank as the barge meanders back and forth between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It seems like an idyllic existence but the discovery of a young woman's body floating in the water hints that there are darker currents flowing beneath the surface of these seemingly quiet and unremarkable lives. What follows is the gradual revelation of the grim underlying reality as told through Joe's stream of consciousness.

Trocchi has long been regarded as the great outsider of Scottish literature and his 1954 novel "Young Adam" is still cherished in some circles as a cult classic. It was cerainly an impressive debut, imbued with the American Beat and French Existentialist influences that were en vogue at the time but with its own subtle distinctiveness that's tricky to define. Perhaps what is most striking about this now seventy year old novel is just how timeless it still feels. This is a story that could easily be set in the present day, a hundred years in the past, or even some time in the future.

Notwithstanding a few flaws to be expected in any writer's early work many initial readers of "Young Adam" considered Trocchi a young talent with a promising career ahead of him. Yet apart from another novel, "Cain's Story", and a handful of other works of little consequence he published nothing else during his lifetime. I was mystified at this until I looked into Trocchi's biography and discovered a sordid and disheartening tale of a life ruined by drug addiction.

What little work Trocchi left behind is just enough to suggest that he might have become a significant figure in Scottish literature. Instead he merits little more than a footnote. This was only part of the price he paid for buying into the romantic myth of the junkie lifestyle that was one of the more idiotic delusions nurtured by the counterculture of the time. "Young Adam" survives as a hint of what might have been and the most powerful feeling it is likely to evoke in its readers today is regret at all that youthful promise gone to waste.

[Gabrielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this a long, long time ago and a sentence still keeps haunting me, just the gist of it, not the exact words. I recently found it, putting my books on shelves in my new apartment and am reading it again to find that one line. The book was made into a breathtaking film with Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton in which there is a full frontal of McGregor naked that was just as haunting and startling as that sentence. Trocchi's writing is gorgeous, poetic, sad, sexy. It obviously stays with you. Here, the narrator who is working on a barge going down a Scottish canal falls for the skipper's wife. I'll say no more.

Just reread and found that sentence, which was actually a long passage. Just as good and compelling on second read. It's a tight, compact, beautifully structured and written novella. More people need to know about Trocchi. I believe he died of a heroin overdose. A great loss!

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliantly crafted novel, with a creeping sense of dread from the first page to the last. It took until almost half way through the book for me to realise just how unreliable a narrator Joe was, so cleverly were little pieces of previously missed information added in. A great short story with many themes and aspects to keep me thinking for a long while yet.

[Eve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of reads like a better version of Camus’ The Outsider (imo). I’m not sure if some of the appeal came from the story taking place relatively close to home for me, but either way this novel is really bleak and very enjoyable.

[Nina Misson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected more.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read but I don't see why quite so much fuss is made over Trocchi.

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic. As the rear blurb describes this book perfectly, Young Adam "is an absorbing existential thriller - a lost gem of world literature."

Without giving too much away (I see that some other reviewers have already done that here on goodreads), this first novel by Scottish-beat writer Alexander Trocchi is a masterpiece about a woman's dead body fished out of the river by Joe (the author) and Leslie who work the barges between Edinburgh, Leith and Glasgow.

What I admired about this novel was how the author slowly peels back the enticing plot, that slowly lures you in, layer by layer, revealing new pieces of the puzzling story, which makes you change your perspective on the story and the author 'Joe' himself as it goes along. Was it an accident? Was it murder?

The last part of the novel is also a great condemnation of our flawed judicial and penal system and one can see his similarity to one of Burroughs' pre-occupations here too - how they were both adamantly against capital punishment, and reading this book you will see why.

The novel builds towards a tremendous nail-biting finish. I won't give anything more away than that. Read this. It is TREMENDOUS. Probably the best modern novel I have read since reading Hunter Thompson's Hells Angels a few years back. Hats off to Trocchi. I look forward to reading his other famous novel, Cain's Book, over the summer.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Якщо ви вирішили читати цю книгу, то не переглядайте жодних анотацій! "Молодого Адама" порівнюють із "Стороннім" Камю, і не безпідставно. Але саме це порівняння неабияк псує враження від роману, адже налаштовує читача на хибні очікування. Мені вдалось абстрагуватись від хрестоматійної тіні "Стороннього" і прочитати текст, забувши про всі свої читацькі досвіди. Наскільки актуальним навіть через півстоліття є образ головного героя - людини, що так і не змогла ніде і ні в чому вкорінитись! Джо - письменник без жодного роману. Все, що він має, це точне письменницьке світовідчуття, реалізувати яке йому так і не вдалось. Він не прагне припинити дрейфувати. Зрештою течія виносить до нього тіло молодої дівчини, як ми згодом дізнаємось, його колишньої. Та чи ця подія хоч щось змінює у Джо? Чи припиняє він свій дрейф по життю?

[Sarah]

Had some really great moments, especially at the start but after a while the book just nosedives due to its inability to know what it actually wants to achieve.
It just felt as if the book was so wrapped up in itself that it gave you no chance to really get what it was trying to tell you.
But it did have some good lines around the end. I really related to Joe in certain aspects (idk if I was meant to really 😭) which made the reading experience more enjoyable to a certain extent.

Overall it was a good enough read but it was just too in love with itself to stick with me really, it was just a bit half baked.

[Barry Levy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the existential tale of Joe, a young man who is as much a mystery to himself as he is to the reader, who works on a barge in Scotland, where he and his boss discover the lifeless body of a young woman in the water. We eventually learn of Joe's relationship to Cathie, the dead woman, and of his involvement with her death. There is, in fact, throughout the story, the pervasive sense of mortality. While I was reading the book, the words that kept coming to mind were: bleak, grim, grimy, sordid, ugly, and graphically sexual. After finishing the novel, I wondered why Trocchi chose the title "Young Adam" even though his protagonist's name is Joe. Adam is, of course, a biblical reference, suggesting that Joe, too, is a fallen figure.

[Gillian Norrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really glad to have stumbled upon this short novel by Alexander Trocchi, a relatively unknown Scottish author (1925-84). The writing is great, the pace quite slow but very effective in creating a dark and melancholic mood. Joe, Trocchi's narrator is an outsider (reminiscent of Camus The Outsider), a drifter working on a barge when he discovers a body. Compulsively readable this is no ordinary thriller with such depth, I found it hard to put down.

[Scott Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scotland’s answer to the beat generation right enough

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ewan McGregor is on the cover so all I did was think about Obi Wan Kenobi

[Katia Zaitseva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Невозможно было оторваться, но в итоге хотелось поставить то ли 5, то ли 3 - одна из самых необычных и неоднозначных в плане впечатлений книг, которые я читала

[Anna BAGRIY · Rating 4 out of 5]

Написано дуже пронизливо, почуття і спостереження головного героя дуже точні і глибокі. Тільки заради цього варто прочитати було цю книгу. Але сам сюжет не дотягнув, чомусь майстерності письма недостатньо було, іноді ставало нуднувато

[Finlay Crotch · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐