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London is both theater and protagonist in Paul Theroux’s novel. His
cast comes from every layer of its society. In Deptford, a seedy
riverside district, lives a group that might pass for a family:
Valentine Hood, late an American consul in Hue (sacked for assaulting
a Vietnamese official); Mayo, a female thief working for the IRA
Provisionals; and two street-wise teen-age waifs, Murf who makes
bombs, and the girl, Brodie, who plants them.
Hood casts his lot
with these dubious terrorists and with the Provos, who distrust his
motives and keep him on the hook. Impelled to act for action’s sake,
Hood becomes embroiled in a murder that triggers a shock wave of
far-reaching consequences. Hood’s solo activities, meshing perilously
with the IRA’s planned English offensive, draw more unlikely players
into the game: Lady Arrow, who blackmails for kicks; Araba Nightwing
and her actors’ commune of canting radicals; and bowler-hatted Mr.
Gawber, who keeps the books for everyone. Urban struggle, Hood learns,
is a family affair.
The Family
Arsenal ranges wide, covering well-mapped parts of London such as
Mayfair and the West End, and the darker, less-charted territory of
the city’s netherworid. It is at once a superbly crafted novel of
complex relationships and a tautly strung thriller, vastly compelling
on both levels. |
