The School for Sin

by Alexander Trocchi, Frances Lengel (pseud.)

Frances Lengel's (Alexander Trocchi's) School for Sin gives a stirring, detailed account of what Peggy and Doreen learned in the big city after they left their respective potato farms. Another of Trocchi's books, this one is intriguing if only for the way Doreen came to join her friend in Dublin. They school's curriculum is of course what one should expect, however as with all things Trocchi, there's that manic quality that separates the work from more standard fare.

144 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1991

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.