SOURCE: “Internal Combustion,” in New Statesman & Society, June 7, 1991, p. 44.

In the following review of The Ant Colony, Binding finds honesty and objectivity in King's satirical novel about the British Institute in Florence at the end of World War II.

To Florence, not long after the end of the second world war, two young people come to teach English at the British Institute: Iris Crediton, who arrives with a whole string of connections (her mother was a famous pianist, well-known in Florentine expatriate circles), and Jack Prentice (his very surname significant), from a workingclass northern family with no social pull anywhere.

They contrast in other ways: pretty Iris has a natural sense of style and a flair for languages, both of which serve her well as life opens up beyond the institute; Jack, clever though he is, and a natural scholar, is defeated by the Italian language. As for...