Summary of The Good Terrorist
Alice is an unemployed woman in her mid-thirties, who lives in London with a group of left-wing squatters in a dilapidated house scheduled for demolition. She takes on the role of caretaker of the building and mother figure within the group. Yet despite her efforts, she cannot prevent her friends from sliding into political extremism. Their misguided idealism culminates in the construction of a car bomb, an act of terrorism targeting a Knightsbridge hotel, with devastating consequences.
Reasons to read The Good Terrorist
“The Good Terrorist” offers a sharp critique of the naïve yet dangerous amateur revolutionaries who emerged in Western Europe during the 1970s and 1980s. Inspired by real events — particularly the 1983 IRA bombing of Harrods — the novel explores how idealism can degenerate into fanaticism, and how ordinary people can drift into acts of violence. Often described as one of the finest portrayals of the terrorist mindset, the book won the WH Smith Literary Award in 1986. Doris Lessing is also renowned for her novels “The Grass is Singing” and “The Golden Notebook”. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007.
Setting: London (England, UK)
Original title: The Good Terrorist
Year of publication: 1985
Nr of pages: 375
