The Good Terrorist is a 1985 novel by Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing

Doris May Lessing CH is a British writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos....

. The story examines the events in the life of a well-intentioned squatter, Alice, who is drawn into organizing acts of violence.

Main characters

• Alice Mellings - 37 years old. Curly hair, freckled. Wears an army jacket. Daughter of upper-middle-class parents from Hampstead
  Hampstead
  Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
  
  . Voice dated from the days of her girls' school in North London; basic B.B.C. English. Fourteen years of experience in squats and communes. College graduate with a degree in politics and economics. Knows how to confront officials. Feels unwanted and abused. Sees herself as a committed revolutionary. Holds Marx and Lenin in high regard even though she hasn't read their works.

• Jasper Willis - Gingery hair and small deft feet. Pale and slender. Dependent on Alice. Son of a solicitor in a Midlands town. Hateful of his father. A middle-class voice roughened by his working-class comrades. Trotskyist
  Trotskyism
  Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
  
   tendencies. Tends to have negative experiences confronting officials. Shares a room with Alice in the squat. Used to be Alice's boyfriend but became interested in homosexuality. Alice feels Jasper is a real revolutionary.

• Mary Williams - A young woman who is an official at the Council building on Belstrode Road that Alice appeals to. Later moves into the squat with her partner, Reggie. While staying at the squat both Mary and Reggie are isolated from the rest as a couple. Middle class.

• Pat - Wears dark military clothes, black strong boots. With the delicate modeling of her face and hands she was more like the idealized picture of a soldier on a recruiting poster. Quick voice of standard middle-class. Avid reader.

• Bert Barnes - Military-looking figure. Pat's partner and Philip's friend. Alice questions whether Bert is a real revolutionary. Deep ho, ho, ho laugh.

• Roberta - A bulky woman with short black curls, a strong face, direct glance and reserved judgment. Made-up voice. Has "radiating love and longing" towards Faye as her partner. Alice is convinced Roberta is not a real revolutionary because she doesn't like her. "Just one of these big maternal lezzies, all sympathy and big boobs; she wants to seem butch and tough, but bad luck for her, she's a mum."

• Faye - Soft-faced fair girl, with her hair in a ponytail, and little curls and tendrils all around her face. Little white teeth, pink lips and shining brown brows. Gives the impression of trembling slightly all over. Rather unbalanced and spontaneous due to her ghastly childhood. Dependent as Roberta's partner yet wants to be free from her. Alice is convinced Faye is not a real revolutionary because she doesn't like her. Scars on her left wrist from cutting.

• Andrew - Russian man who frequently visits No. 45 next door. Broad and not taller than Alice. Blunt face and little grey shrewd eyes. Short hair. Expensive and neat appearance. Detached and cold. Alice compares him to Lenin. American voice. Alcoholic. Alice is first interested but later finds him unimpressive.

• Monica Winters - A girl with a small child in a pushchair. Worn down with everything yet determined to find housing. Large grey beautiful eyes. Dropping head. Lives with her husband Bobby in a one-room unit at the Shaftwood Hotel. Rejected by the squat. Child has blue eyes and a "fat plastic parcel with a pale podgy spotty face."

• Cedric Mellings - Alice's dad. Solid, tending-to-fat man, pale skin, lightly freckled, short reddish hair. Youngest of several children of a family from Newcastle
  Newcastle upon Tyne
  Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
  
  . Scottish connections. Owns a printing firm called 'C. Mellings, Printers and Stationers.' Bourgeois Socialist. "The ugly duckling of the family turned swan."

• Philip - A slight pale, young man with blue eyes and long elegant white hands. Layman who had been given the sack six months ago from a building firm. He fixes up the squat to livable condition. A little brave orphan. Easy-paced contemplative manner. Wears white trousers.

• Jim Mackenzie - Soft open, boyish face. Discriminated against due to his skin color. Has the voice of a genuine cockney. A printer who gets a job with Cedric Mellings but gets fired after he assumed that he stole his cash. His grandfather is from Trinidad.

Other characters

• Dorothy Mellings - Alice's mother. Lives alone after divorcing Cedric.

• The Spanish woman - Dorthy's maid. Supposedly supporting her family in Valencia by helping Dorthy out with household chores.

• Theresa - Alice's favorite auntie with soft dark hair. Wears dark glasses.

• Bob Hood - Mary's colleague at the Council. The "nasty little bureaucrat" who comes to check the condition of the squat.

• Joan Robbins - The women next door who complains about the squat's poor condition. Defensive but forgiving when she allows Alice and her friends in No. 43 to dig a hole for all the waste they have been collecting in pails.

• Anthony - Theresa's partner. Big dark bulky man with a full, measured, sexy voice. Hearty but false.

• Felicity - Philip's girlfriend.

• Council workmen - The workmen who had poured concrete in the squat's laboratory bowls.

• Fred - Owns a cafe called Caff in the London Underground
  London Underground
  The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
  
   where Alice and the others go for breakfast.

• Fred's wife - Serves at Fred's Caff.

• Sarah - A refugee from Austria who has served at Fred's Caff for years. Alice had previously helped her find a flat. Had a similar situation to Monica.

• Zoe Devlin - Dorothy's good friend. Another one of Alice's 'aunties'.

• Alan - A large man with blue dungarees
  Jeans
  Jeans are trousers made from denim. Some of the earliest American blue jeans were made by Jacob Davis, Calvin Rogers, and Levi Strauss in 1873. Starting in the 1950s, jeans, originally designed for cowboys, became popular among teenagers. Historic brands include Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler...
  
   and black leather gloves who comes to clear the garden of the squat.

• Mrs. Whitfield - An official at the Council who gives in to Alice's request for electricity.

• Old Bill - The police. First come to the squat on a call from the neighbors because they were digging a hole for their waste.

• Jane Mellings - Alice's father's new wife. Has two pretty infants as children with

• The dustmen - Three men who come with their rubbish-van to pick up sacks full of glass bottles.

• Reggie - Mary's boyfriend. Tall, knobbly looking man, with very white skin, small black eyes under strong black brows, and dense, very fine black hair. Middle class. An industrial chemist recently fired by a big firm. Shares an "air of common sense of what is due" with Mary. While staying at the squat both Mary and Reggie are isolated from the rest as a couple.

• Humphery Mellings - Alice's brother. Despised by Alice for having a "nice safe little job" as an aircraft controller. Supposedly has a child.

• Mrs Jackson - An old women who lives near the squat.

• John, Clarissa and Charlie - Three friends that got arrested along with Jasper at a picket.

• The policewoman - A young policewoman who Alice addresses when she comes to the Police Station to report their squat as short-term housing. Tidy and trim in her dark uniform. Tight little smile.

• Jack - A contact to the I.R.A. who Jasper meets in jail. Leaves to Dublin with Jasper and Bert after Alice provides money for his fare.

• Muriel - Young woman who lives in No. 45. Tall, slender; baggy, voluminous. Wears khaki and green battledress. Face with protruding nose and gobbly lips. Goose-girl; wanting to please Andrew's sexual desires.

• Molly and Helen - Two women Alice had had arguments with over feminism
  Feminism
  Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
  
   and their contempt for men. From the Liverpool
  Liverpool
  Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
  
   Branch of the C.C.U.

• Jill - Cedric's secretary. Innocent and dumb.

• Fate - Cedric's older brother who had been in the war.

• Deborah - Cedric's and Jane's little daughter that nearly was hit by Alice's stone.

• The two men - Two men from the I.R.A. that meet with Jasper and Bert to determine if they want to recruit them.

• Caroline - A short, plump girl in her early twenties who lives in No. 45. Dark and attractive. she after Pat was the sexual pourpose of Bert.

• Jocelin, Paul and Edward - Members of the C.C.U. but unable to join the Congress. Came to the party on Saturday night.

• Mrs Forrester - Lives next door to Alice's mom.

• Anne - Alice's best friend during most of her childhood.

• The Greek - Philip's employer.

• Mrs Thatcher
  Margaret Thatcher
  Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
  
  - United Kingdom's Prime Minister
  Prime minister
  A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
  
   who speaks in Milchester, a speech Alice and her companions go to demonstrate at. Referred to by Alice and her companions as "Queen Bitch Thatcher" with her pink-and-white, assured, complacent Tory face.

Conflicts

• Individual philosophy vs. group ideology
• Political idealism vs. reality
• The capitalist system and socialist theory
• The bourgeois and the revolutionary

Bibliographic information

The title is currently in print (2008-03-17), published by HarperPerennial on 18 Jun 2007 ISBN 000-724721-4.

It was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape

Jonathan Cape

Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...

 Ltd in 1985, ISBN 0-224-02323-3 and in the USA by Alfred A. Knopf

Alfred A. Knopf

Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...

 ISBN 0-394-54339-, also in 1985.

Recognition

The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and received The W.H. Smith Literary Award (1985) and the Italian Mondello Prize (1985).

External links

• "The Good Terrorist" at author's website (includes summary of the plot)
• "Alice, the radical home-maker": Review by Denis Donoghue, Published in the New York Times: September 22, 1985 (Accessed 18 March 2008)
• "Mopping Up the Good Terrorist": Review by Paul Gray in Time magazine, 7 October 1985. (Accessed 18 March 2008).