Do You like book Cain's Book (1993)?
A remarkable novel by just about any standard. Forget those who say it's about addiction: It is not. It is rather an honest attempt to place a troubled and rebellious human consciousness into a literary space between the many false value systems offered it by all of the anti-existentialist power structures: the ethos of the capitalist religion of work, the moralist conformity of marriage, and all of the modern bourgeois and patriotic constructions of place, of nationality, of sexual mores, of class and societal roles (husband, worker, citizen); as well as the various social, state, and religious institutions that legitimize all of our multiform willful slavery to structure and to those that the structure supports, in all of its multifarious forms of conformity and acquiescence. Our protagonist, Joe Necchi, opts for words, heroin and, primarily, play as models for escape from and the rejection of the world's labels and expectations--each strategy presents itself, to greater and lesser degrees, as a tragic insufficiency perhaps, but they are all-too-logical and at least temporarily consoling actions in the face of the mind-numbing conformity that is still with us in the modern materialistic pseudo-Christian nation-state. I can think of no more important or pointed social novel to read from the last century.
—Lee Foust
I don't remember feeling this torn on how many stars to rate a book on here. I'm going with 4 stars for now because I did enjoy it enough to read it within a 24 hour period. At various points as I read, I thought it might be anywhere from 1 star to 5 stars. I was so angry by the time I was done at the wasted potential. I felt like it could have been so much better than it was. I loved the first half but didn't feel like the second half really added much to the book. In some ways, I thought it was brutally honest in a very refreshing way, and in others I felt like he was believing his own lies. I think I kept hoping for more insights. I did think the book stands up very well to the test of time. Other than a little bit of slang, it didn't seem that dated to me. It still felt really relevant to read.
—Tori
It is indeed. Trocchi was highly regarded in the 50's and 60's. Not sure if he's read as much today, but he ought to be. His Young Adam is also teriffic.
—Tosh