Antony Beevor
Fortress Koestler
Stranger on the Square
By Arthur & Cynthia Koestler (introduction by Harold Harris)
Hutchinson 236pp £9.95 order from our bookshop
Last year on March 3rd the bodies of Arthur and Cynthia Koestler were found in their house in Montpelier Square. Koestler’s membership of Exit was well known. His belief in voluntary euthanasia can be traced back to the way he overcame the terror of an operation in childhood. He described in Arrow in the Blue how he insisted on holding the ether mask over his own face. ‘In this way I would feel that I was in control of the situation, and that the terrible moment of helplessness would not recur.’
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