A disturbing duo - The Family Arsenal - with - My Secret History - Paul Theroux 1976 - Hamish Hamilton, London - First Editions Two first editions of of Paul Theroux’s more exotic and disturbing works.

The Family Arsenal - Hood, a renegade American diplomat, envisions a new urban order, flirts with terrorists. Mayo, has just made a political statement - stealing a Flemish painting. Murf the bomb-maker scrawls 'Arsenal Rule' across the city's walls, whilst Brodie bombs Euston and afterwards worries about her complexion. A novel of London lowlife and the dispossessed, and a powerful and violent thriller of disenchanted people.

‘One of the most evocative, intelligently crafted suspense novels in years - like the early fiction of Graham Greene.' -
The New York Times.

'Brilliant and haunting. . . the ingenious of the plot, the London setting. . . the trapped and interwoven people, and the balefully witty observation, have an undistracted force' -
Observer.

My Secret History - 'Nothing on the shelf has quite prepared the reader for My Secret History… Parent saunters into the book aged fifteen, shouldering a .22 Mossberg rifle as earlier, more innocent American heroes used to tote a fishing pole. In his pocket is a paperback translation of Dante's Inferno… He is a creature of naked and unquenchable ego, greedy for sex, money, experience, another life' - Observer.

‘Merges the two genres he's famous for... My Secret History is about the permanence of marriage in the face of mistrust and infidelity; it's about the wisdom of women and the foolishness of men; and it's about mature love as the necessary and sometimes successful antidote to youthful selfishness.’ - New York Times Book Review.
  Octavo, two volumes. pp. [6] 311 [3]; [10] 468 [2].

Note:
My Secret History was also issued in a limited edition of 150 signed copies without dust jacket.
  Condition: Family Arsenal - Very good, staining along the top edge, in near fine jacket, toned along upper edge, sunning to red lettering on spine. Secret History - near fine, light spotting to top edge, in near fine price-clipped dust jacket.   Ref: 106711   Price: HK$ 900