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 In Ireland, a few decades ago, an aristocratic man (Macarthur) approached a stranger. This stranger was sunbathing; Macarthur said, "I'm taking your car."


The stranger (a woman named Bridie) became upset; Macarthur picked up a hammer and beat her until she was nearly dead.

A few days later, Macarthur arranged to purchase a gun from a man. He thought that he would ask to hold the gun, then just run away (having successfully pulled off a theft). But, for mysterious reasons, he pulled the trigger and murdered the vendor. Around this time, also, the woman named Bridie died in a hospital.

Could the story get weirder? Yes. Macarthur became a national figure; while in prison, he inspired a serious literary work, The Book of Evidence, by John Banville. After his release from prison, Macarthur would haunt John Banville. There would be a Banville reading at a bookstore--and Macarthur would appear in the back, watching as Irish citizens asked questions about the fictional Macarthur-adjacent character that Banville had invented.

A Thread of Violence is a new attempt to understand Macarthur. The writer, Mark O'Connell, begins following Macarthur during COVID; soon, a weird kind of pseudo-friendship starts to develop. O'Connell is queasy about this relationship. One day, his three-year-old is playing with his phone, when the name "MACARTHUR" appears on the screen. ("Daddy, should I answer?") O'Connell gets anxious when he notices many surfaces covered with plastic bags in the Macarthur apartment. (Macarthur's explanation--"I don't like dusting, so I just apply plastic bags to the TV every night, after use"--makes no sense.) Finally, O'Connell makes himself ill when reporting on Bridie, in a trendy attempt to "center the victim." He says, "That's the moral thing to do right now, except that this particular story is not about Bridie. She was chosen at random. If I spill out the details of her life, for you, I'm just sort of repeating what Macarthur did. I'm committing a kind of violent act."

Although O'Connell has not mentioned Janet Malcolm, his interest in crime, and in the dubious ethical standing of journalism, clearly points back to "The Journalist and the Murderer."

He is such a smart and elegant writer, I think the actual subject doesn't matter that much. I'd read a book of his about obscure Irish political battles, or about public transportation.
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