This girl is on fire

Recently I've had a bit of a dip in my literary mojo, so to speak. I've managed to pick up two books, one after the other, both of which I had to abandon around halfway through (hence the silence on the blog). One of them was One More Chance by Lucy Ayrton, of which I won a proof copy but I simply couldn't make myself finish it, so much did I suffer; the second one was The Spark in the Machine by Daniel Keown which, in all fairness, was a very good intro to the type of books that I now work with. My only reason for stopping this one is that I don't need to know each acupuncture channel and how they work.

Fortunately, my mojo's back with R.O. Kwon's The Incendiaries, which I was already highly anticipating a while back and I was so very right to do so. The New Yorker sang the novel's praises, claiming it was a "rare depiction of belief that doesn’t kill the thing it aspires to by trying too hard" and emphasizing its silences as the novel's most powerful tool - and I couldn't have agreed with this point more.

The Incendiaries is a story about three people, told from mostly one viewpoint, all based at an elite university: Will, our narrator, Phoebe and John Leal. It is hard to pick who's story is the dominating one. The book tells the story of Will's increasing love for Phoebe and Phoebe's increasing draw towards a religious cult, lead by John Leal. It is a powerful mix of love, loss, grief, identity, religion and more than anything, the loss of faith.

What did I like about it?

The first highlight has to be R.O. Kwon's gorgeous prose, which makes this short novel feel like something to be cherished and consumed in small bites, making it last as long as possible. (Conversely, this makes it very hard not to read it in one sitting.) Her metaphors are highly unique while refraining from feeling forced or over the top. She points to John Leal walking across the campus, "His torso riding his hips like a serpent on its coil," and describes the rain, "the lines slanting like marionette strings". Her attention to detail in describing a scene of gathered members of the religious group: "Through a haze of smoke, stars smeared like souls fleeing this fallen earth. The night chill pricked Phoebe's bare arms, as if with pinfeathers, and she felt the rush of flight, lifting up."

The story itself is dark, threatening, painful like something inevitable, and the power of each character's motivation is what really moves it along. Phoebe hopes to replace her guilt and grief for her mother with religion; Will hopes to replace his grief for religion with love. The desperate search isn't described in detail and yet somehow is crystal clear, human in its approach but with a lot left to the reader to think through.

By using abrupt jolts between recent past and the present, Kwon is great at emphasizing the distance and difference between the two - and despite the back-and-forth, the story gradually builds towards its conclusion. We also know from the beginning what we're building towards, and it becomes clear very early on that Will is telling the story from a future point of view. In my opinion, Kwon is showing us the ending so early on so that we can focus on what really matters - how and why the people involved in this tragic ending got there - thereby carving the book beautifully out of a potential 'mystery' or 'thriller' label and firmly planting its feet in literary fiction.

What was I not massively fond of?

I have no negative criticism to share about the book itself.

Regarding the cover though - while I am no designer, as an avid reader and consumer of books, I must declare that I am unhappy with this cover. It is beautiful and I think would work very well for a piece of the above mentioned labels, or women's fiction. But I think that, for this novel, it runs the risk of putting off readers, thinking they're looking at a piece of light fiction, as opposed to the gorgeous, vital piece of literature that they're making the mistake of bypassing.

I just don't feel the relationship between the design and the contents, and I fear it might not do the book justice.

Overall...

Kwon is fantastically talented. This is a stunning debut novel that juggles prose so artfully that I'm actually surprised it didn't make it onto the Booker list (but then again, none of the books I picked from the longlist made it onto the shortlist this year, so more fool them).

It is a complex story, running on so many different layers that my short review really doesn't do it justice. It touches on cultural heritage and family ties; on transforming personalities and the immense power of regret. There are subtle patterns and quietly growing tension - it is simply mastery, and I would urge you to read this book with all my might.

10/10