Desire and Helen

Trocchi's first novel, and considered by many his most successful bit of erotica (though there were so many good ones by this author), is the tale of Helen, a girl born to a rural village in Northwest Australia (about as isolated a place as it gets), and a woman of the sea, like that other Helen (both are Greek). Determined to flout convention and chronicle her life--all of life--Helen brings us along as she loses her innocence, is betrayed, freed, imprisoned again, cheated, cheats others, and on, in a journey that takes her to Sydney and to Sea, to Europe and finally to Africa.