The Good Terrorist: A Thriller (Vintage International) - Softcover

Lessing, Doris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0307389960 ISBN 13: 9780307389961

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2008

Synopsis

The Good Terrorist follows Alice Mellings, a woman who transforms her home into a headquarters for a group of radicals who plan to join the IRA. As Alice struggles to bridge her ideology and her bourgeois upbringing, her companions encounter unexpected challenges in their quest to incite social change against complacency and capitalism. With a nuanced sense of the intersections between the personal and the political, Nobel laureate Doris Lessing creates in The Good Terrorist a compelling portrait of domesticity and rebellion.

About this title

Review:

"Powerful, effective, and page-turningly suspenseful." --The Christian Science Monitor"One of the best novels in English I have read about the terrorist mentality and the inner life of a revolutionary group." --Alison Lurie, The New York Review of Books"A fine novel, a work of strong and scrupulous realism, absolutely contemporary. . . . What set of circumstances will produce a terrorist act? Lessing provides a convincing explanation." --Marilynne Robinson, The Washington Post Book World"Engrossing.... It bristles with arresting situations and observations of character." --Newsweek

From the Back Cover:

In a London squat a band of bourgeois revolutionaries are united by a loathing of the waste and cruelty they see around them as they try desperately to become involved in terrorist activities far beyond their level of competence.

Only Alice seems capable of organising anything. Motherly, practical and determined, she is also easily exploited by the group and ideal fodder for a more dangerous and potent cause. Eventually their naïve radical fantasies turn into a chaos of real destruction, but the aftermath is not as exciting as they hoped. Nonetheless, while they may not have changed the world, their lives will never be the same again.

"Hugely enjoyable. Lessing has a wit, an indignation and a narrative agility which leave few left-wing sacred cows unscathed."
'Sunday Times'

"Doris Lessing's portrait of this confused band of comrades is masterly and meticulously truthful. Humorous, ironic and sharp."
'Sunday Telegraph'

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0307389960
• ISBN 13: 9780307389961
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384