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A Thread of Violence: A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder
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About This Book
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE From the award-winning author comes the gripping tale of one of the most scandalous murderers in modern Irish history, at once a propulsive work of true crime and an act of literary subversion. "A masterpiece"— The Observer • "Disturbing [and] compelling"—Colm Toíbín • "Superb and unforgettable"—Sally Rooney • "Brilliant"— New York Times Book Review • "A masterly work"—John Banville • "Fascinating"—Emmanuel Carrère • "Morally complex and mesmerizing"—Fintan O'Toole Malcolm Macarthur was a well-known Dublin socialite. Suave and urbane, he passed his days mingling with artists and aristocrats, reading philosophy, living a life of the mind. But by 1982, his inheritance had dwindled to almost nothing, a desperate threat to his lifestyle. Macarthur hastily conceived a He would commit bank robbery, of the kind that had become frightfully common in Dublin at the time. But his plan spun swiftly out of control, and he needlessly killed two innocent civilians. The ensuing manhunt, arrest, and conviction amounted to one of the most infamous political scandals in modern Irish history, contributing to the eventual collapse of a government. Winner of the Wellcome and Rooney Prizes, Mark O'Connell spent countless hours in conversation with Macarthur—interviews that veered from confession to evasion. Through their tense exchanges and O'Connell's independent reporting, a pair of narratives a riveting account of Macarthur's crimes and a study of the hazy line between truth and invention. We come to see not only the enormity of the murders but the damage that's inflicted when a life is rendered into story. At once propulsive and searching, A Thread of Violence is a hard look at a brutal act, its subterranean origins, and the long shadow it casts. It offers a haunting and insightful examination of the lies we tell ourselves—and the lengths we'll go to preserve them.
Reviews
"...an engrossing and intimate glimpse into the psyche of an actual yet improbable murderer ..."
"Is it Macarthur: hosting O'Connell in a modest flat where the murderer's bookshelf and a rarely watched television are sealed in black plastic?"
"The resulting picture of the killer is seen as if through a proverbial dark glass—and it's as chilling, in the end, as any Hitchcock film."
"An entertaining, quirky mash-up of Frankenstein and Bridget Jones' Diary, made more substantive as a clever parable of self-discovery ..."
"Instead, he confronts the fact, in all its ironies."
"O'Connell is a gripping writer and some episodes have a scalding chill ..."
"The unbelievability is probably most resonant."
"A Thread of Violence instils the certitude not only that no one else could have written this book, but that no other need ever be written on the subject."
"Crucially, the moral intelligence with which he treats the themes, including the plight of the victims, explodes the idea that the criminal is interesting for reasons of diabolical glamour ..."
"Relating Macarthur's crimes and everything written about them, obsessing over details true and imagined, O'Connell compares himself to "a prospector who had struck a rich vein of crude oil." He is, in other words, absolutely in on the exploitation of his exercise, and our role in reading it."
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