 Lessing said she was inspired to write The Good Terrorist by the IRA bombing of the <unk> department store in London in 1983 . She recalled , " the media reported it to sound as if it was the work of amateurs . I started to think , what kind of amateurs could they be ? " and realised " how easy it would be for a kid , not really knowing what he or she was doing , to drift into a terrorist group . " Lessing already had Alice in mind as the central character : " I know several people like Alice — this mixture of ... maternal caring , ... and who can contemplate killing large numbers of people without a moment 's <unk> . " She described Alice as " quietly comic [ al ] " because she is so full of contradictions . She said she was surprised how some of the characters ( other than Jasper , Alice 's love interest ) developed , such as the pill @-@ popping and fragile Faye , who turned out to be a " destroyed person " . 
