The Good Terrorist

The spacious Victorian mansion that was to be a haven from violence has become a breeding ground for it. Home is similarly invaded in The Good Terrorist by squatters, transients, and terrorists, and the happy homemaker, the tidy housekeeper, the busy and resourceful little woman, becomes herself, by the end of the novel, a devotee of violence, not as a means but as an end in itself. "I do have a sense, and I've never not had it, of how easily things can vanish," Lessing acknowledged in an interview about The Fifth Child with Mervyn Rothstein in the New York Times. It's a sense of disaster. I know where it comes from-my upbringing. That damn First World War, which rode my entire childhood, because my father was so damaged by it. This damn war rammed down my throat day and night, and then World War II coming, which they talked about all the time. You know, you can never get out from under this kind of upbringing, the continual obsession with this. And after all, it's true. These wars did arise, and destroyed a beautiful household, with all the loving children ...»