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

From an external source: Alexander Trocchi’s first novel is an existential thriller set on a barge travelling along the canalways between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The plot revolves around the discovery of the corpse of a young woman found floating in the canal. As tensions develop between the narrator of the story and the couple with whom he shares the the barge, the reader is slowly sucked into the disturbed psyche of Trocchi’s rootless anti-hero.

This book was recently made into a film staring Ewan McGregor. Someone should do a biopic on Trocchi, as well.

Excerpt:

Suddenly Les began to talk about the corpse. He said that, in his opinion she must have fallen in. “If somebody had pushed her there would have been more marks on the body, wouldn't there? She would have struggled.”

I asked him how he explained the fact that she had only a short petticoat on, that the skin on her buttocks was grazed. He said that she might have been drunk.

He knocked out his pipe and repacked. Now that he had said it, I don't think it convinced even himself. I glanced round and I was sure that Ella was listening. She was still smiling at the potato in her hands. I watched it drop like a plummet into the bucket. She took another potato from the sack beside her.

Leslie asked me my ideas on the floating body. He asked if I thought our corpse had made a night of it. He meant was she a tart who went aboard with some ship's officer or other. He was trying to visualize her drunk on deck with her skirt above her knees and her thighs splayed for the man who later got rid of her.

I knew how his mind worked. I knew a good many of the adventures he'd had in his more viral youth. He knew well the life and loves of a sailor, though of the affairs of the officer class his knowledge was but rumor and conjecture.

Doubtless from his question he had in mind the tale he had of late related to me of the chaplain's mate he had met during his service at sea during the war. A randy little fellow of Italian heritage Les told me.

Luigi was exempt from the horrors of the battle because he had trained for the priesthood before the conflict was joined. And his strict papist upbringing had left him with a gift for all the right sounding yet meaningless phrases and religiousness that fool the unaware and had left him with a penchant for practically every pleasure his church had taught him was unholy.

It was on the occasion of his last night of liberty in the safe harbor of these isles before he had to face the treachery of the North Atlantic that Luigi had exercised his sharp Latin tongue, spiritual corruption and holier-than-all prerogatives to bring one of the lovelier ladies of the docks on board his assigned ship, the flagship of the fleet. His double-duty as chaplain's aid and librarian gained him a berth in the space that served as both office and library.

There too was stored the sacramental wine, enough to service all the true believers and any battle-converted agnostics, although it was unlikely that the ship carrying the admiral's ensign would see much of the battle hellfire that tricks the otherwise aware into thinking it might be prudent to get some religion to hedge your bet.

More than a few drops of that unsanctified blood of Christ were shed during that evening in the process of saving Luigi and the object of his lecherous affections. And as the story was told to Les when it reached him below decks later the following day, more positions than any missionary ever brought to a gentle, unfettered native culture were employed. And Christ's blood was not all that was shed as things progressed.

It seems that, stupefied by red wine never fermented to be consumed in quantity, Luigi had become limp beyond control at one critical juncture with his unholy angel. She, having lost in the fruit of the vine much of the sense that is one of the sweeter aspects of a professional's nature, mocked his inability. Of his limpness she asked if Easter would be arriving soon so that the Lord might rise again. Confronted by his duplicity and false piety, and enraged by his inability, the chaplain's assistant turned Judas. Grabbing the crucifix stored with the wine and communion paraphernalia, he bashed the half naked courtesan across the temple.

Emboldened as his savior had been when he chased the moneychangers, Luigi felt the Holy Spirit move in his loins and was empowered from on high to do with the lifeless form what he had been unable to do with the life-filled child of God. Rigid again, he took pagan delights with her, the reports below deck later had it, buggering her senseless body as it lay face down across the library table. And all the while her life blood drained red and unnoticed by “Luigi the messenger of God” from the gash above her penciled eyebrow and painted face.

Of course, when he finally exhausted his religious rage and came partially to his senses, Luigi's conquest had been well on her way to meet her maker. Infuriated anew at having buggered a corpse and broken so many of his church's commandments at once, he rammed the cross of her mortal destruction where his manhood had previously sought the greater glory and pitched the body from the library, over the rail and into the dark waters of the harbor. Then, screaming Hail Mary's in a final act of confusion and contrition, he defied his church's teachings for the final time. He dove head first, stark naked except for the miraculous medal he wore about his neck, from the lofty deck of his library/office/bunk to splatter himself on the hard steel deck many feet below.

Early the next morning the corpse of Luigi's convert was fished from the harbor, crucifix firmly in place, to the stares of the changing watch. The Admiral's ship steamed out on schedule, on the turning tide. The crew never heard anything official about Luigi. But the first Sunday service at sea featured a simple metal cross fashioned below decks in the machine shop while the ship was underway.

I guessed that that was at the heart of Les' question about our corpse.

I said, “She might have been pregnant.”

But he said, “Naw, we'd've noticed.”