The Incendiaries

The debut novel from the Korean-American writer RO Kwon starts with a bomb attack carried out by an extremist Christian cult. Will Kendall knows his former girlfriend, Phoebe Lin, was one of the perpetrators; what plays out in this short, sharp tale is the story of why . . . When Phoebe is approached by John Leal, a barefoot preacher who claims to have been a prisoner in a North Korean gulag, she believes he offers the purpose and discipline she has lost. But Will, struggling to come to terms with the loss of his Christian faith, sees through Leal. This triumvirate of flawed characters share the narrative focus as events spiral towards their bloody denouement - and Kwon's spare, scalpel-like writing makes Phoebe's tumble into Leal's crazed vision utterly convincing

The Incendiaries probes the seductive and dangerous places to which we drift when loss unmoors us. In dazzlingly acrobatic prose, R. O. Kwon explores the lines between faith and fanaticism, passion and violence, the rational and the unknowable

What an intriguing novel. Told in spare, revealing prose from the three central characters' points of view, it makes the reader look again at faith, fanaticism and identity

An impressive, assured debut about the hope for personal and political revolution and all the unexpected ways it flickers out. Kwon has vital things to say about the fraught times we live in

Fairy-tale quality reminiscent of Donna Tartt's The Secret History

Religion, politics and love collide in this slim but powerful novel reminiscent of Donna Tart's The Secret History, with menace and mystery lurking in every corner

The Incendiaries is a book of careful feints - the emphases in the story never fall where you expect, but Kwon is always in total control . . . a startlingly assured book by an important new writer

The Incendiaries is a God-haunted, willful, strange book written with a kind of savage elegance. I've said it before, but now I'll shout it from the rooftops: R. O. Kwon is the real deal

A classic love triangle between two tormented college students and God. The Incendiaries brings us, page by page, from quiet reckonings with shame and intimacy to a violent, grand tragedy. In a conflagration of lyrical prose, R. O. Kwon skillfully evokes the inherent extremism of young love

R. O. Kwon's characters leave you unsure of where reality stands in a narrative that is beautifully disorienting. As each retreats further into their own mind, the language becomes more jarring, and the logic harder to follow, in a way that mimics the real-life terror of obsession

Radiant . . . a dark, absorbing story of how first love can be as intoxicating and dangerous as religious fundamentalism . . .

A stunning debut, The Incendiaries is a story of interpersonal and religious devotion . . . It's a discomforting yet thoroughly engrossing read about processing trauma and changing ideals at the precipice of adulthood and the overwhelming power of conviction. After this impressive introduction of her work to the world, we're excited to see where Kwon takes us in the future

An exquisitely written novel about love, loss and faith taken to extremes

This debut novel is absolutely electric, something new in the firmament. Everyone should read this book

Faith and its furies lie at the heart of The Incendiaries, R. O. Kwon's disarmingly propulsive debut . . . It's a combustive tale about the human compulsion to latch onto something bigger than ourselves, no matter the cost

A pulsating, hypnotic debut novel . . . Kwon's subject is not so much love and betrayal - though both forces are presented as elementally destructive - as the power of religion, and the grieving that engulfs those who lose faith. She understands what a believer will do to retain her sense of belonging, to never be lonely again . . . The Incendiaries packs a disruptive charge, and introduces RO Kwon as a major talent

A swift, sensual novel about the unraveling of a collegiate relationship and its aftermath. Kwon writes gracefully about the spiritual insecurities of millennials

The Incendiaries is the most buzzed about debut of the summer, as it should be . . . [it] is a sharp, little novel as hard to ignore as a splinter in your eye . . . In a nation still so haunted by the divine promise, on the cusp of ever-more contentious debates about abortion and other intrinsically spiritual issues, The Incendiaries arrives at precisely the right moment

Every explosive requires a fuse. That's R. O. Kwon's novel, a straight, slow-burning fuse. To read her novel is to follow an inexorable flame coming closer and closer to the object it will detonate-the characters, the crime, the story, and, ultimately, the reader