“Cleave has achieved something rare. . . . [The narrator] will break your heart and remind you how, in the face of the uncontrollable and the inexplicable, humor can allow one to survive.”—San Francisco Chronicle
Incendiary
A Novel
Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of Little Bee comes “a gripping story…and portrayal of a woman unraveling in the face of overwhelming grief” (The Boston Globe) a “sensitive, artful, and deft…near-perfect debut” (Baltimore Sun).
A distraught woman writes a letter to one of history’s most notorious criminals after her young son and her husband are killed in a bomb attack at a soccer match in London. In an emotionally raw voice alive with grief, compassion, and startling humor, she tries to convince him to abandon his terror campaign by revealing to him the desperate sadness—“I am a woman built on the wreckage of myself”—and the broken heart of a working-class life blown apart.
A surreal vision made brilliantly, viscerally powerful and undeniable, Incendiary is a “a mesmerizing tour de force” (The Washington Post).
Reviews
“An audacious, provocative voice . . . [Cleave] has a clear and disturbing vision of the psychological effects of an attack on a city population.” —The New York Times Book Review
“In Cleave’s gripping story…[his] portrayal of a woman unraveling in the face of overwhelming grief is both compelling and haunting…‘Incendiary reminds us that in the face of uncontrollable and unimaginable tragedy, humor and words can provide comfort, but ultimately each of us must search deep within ourselves for the resilience to survive…’ The heroine’s plea to Bin Laden is at once filled with despair, rage, and acerbic wit… it is about more than just one mother’s loss. It’s also a subtle political commentary on the loss of principles, loss of respect, loss of freedoms, and loss of innocence that can surface in a city or nation after a terrorist attack. Like the blast itself, the emotions consume all those in its path…Incendiary suggests that even amid the rubble of a terrorist attack, we can gain a glimpse of hope for a better future, stay open to hidden gifts in one’s life, and perhaps even discover that we are capable of forgiveness of our own fragility and carelessness as well as that of others.”—Boston Globe
“Fiction can be a highly effective way of depicting terror… because fine writing – and Incendiary is a very fine example – is such an eloquent human instrument.” —The Economist