How do I handle linked lists?

In general, you usually don't need a linked list in Perl, since with regular arrays, you can push and pop or shift and unshift at either end, or you can use splice to add and/or remove arbitrary number of elements at arbitrary points.

If you really, really wanted, you could use structures as described in the perldsc manpage or the perltoot manpage and do just what the algorithm book tells you to do.