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. |
