
Cain's Book
Alexander Trocchi(Author)
Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
2nd Edition
Published on 11. November 1993
Book
Paperback/Softback
252 pages
978-0-8021-3314-4 (ISBN)
Description
This is the journal of Joe Necchi, a junkie living on a barge that plies the rivers and bays of New York. Joe's world is the half-world of drugs and addicts -- the world of furtive fixes in sordid Harlem apartments, of police pursuits down deserted subway stations. Junk for Necchi, however, is a tool, freely chosen and fully justified; he is Cain, the malcontent, the profligate, the rebel who lives by no one's rules but his own. Like DeQuincey and Baudelaire before him, Trocchi's muse was drugs. But unlike his literary predecessors, in his roman a clef, Trocchi never romanticizes the source of his inspiration. If the experience of heroin, of the "fix," is central to Cain's Book, both its destructive force and the possibilities for creativity it creates are recognized and accepted without apology.
“Cain’s Book is the classic late-1950s account of heroin addiction. . . . An un-self-forgiving existentialism, rendered with writerly exactness and muscularity, set this novel apart from all others of the genre.” –– William S. Burroughs
“Cain’s Book is the classic late-1950s account of heroin addiction. . . . An un-self-forgiving existentialism, rendered with writerly exactness and muscularity, set this novel apart from all others of the genre.” –– William S. Burroughs
More details
Edition
2nd ed.
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
313 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8021-3314-4 (9780802133144)
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Schweitzer Classification