Alexander Trocchi achieved notoriety, rather than fame, with the publication of his second novel. Cain's Book, in 1960. Although associated with the "beat" movement and its writers--in particular with the experimentation with drugs which is a part of that movement--Trocchi's roots are in Scotland. His best writing depends heavily on this Scottish background, if only in the sense that he strives to define himself in opposition to it.

Trocchi was born into a working-class Glasgow family on 30 July 1925 and, during 1942-1943 and, again, during 1946-1950, attended Glasgow University, where he took a master's degree with honors in philosophy, serving in the Royal Navy from 1943 to 1946. On leaving the university in 1950, he went directly to Paris, where he began using both hard and soft drugs, and from there, in 1956, moved to the United States. In the same year he married Lyn Hicks. Later on, facing drug charges, which at the...