[REVIEW] The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon

 

(Riverhead Books, 2018)

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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R.O. Kwon’s The Incendiaries is a dangerous novel. It pulls readers in with what appears to be a simple but effective plot, lulls them with a prose that constantly explodes in short bursts of poetry, and then drags them down, wild-eyed and incredulous, into a dark, scary, deadly place where shattered love, religious fanaticism, emotional trauma, and terrorism clash. With a strong religious undercurrent and a triumvirate of characters that allow the story to flow forward at breakneck speed, The Incendiaries is the kind of novel that announces the arrival of a unique, talented voice that is not afraid of the dark.

Phoebe Lin meets Will Kendall during her first month at the prestigious Edwards University. She is popular and likes to partake of the local nightlife as well as most of the social events the campus has to offer. However, despite being outgoing and sociable, there’s something at Phoebe’s core that she never shares: she feels guilty for her mother’s recent death. Just like her, Will has something to hide. He’s a bizarre young man on a scholarship who transferred to Edwards from Bible college after having a faith crisis and works as a waiter at a local Italian restaurant to make ends meet. Despite their differences, the two of them fall in love, but that love is threatened when Phoebe starts spending a lot of time with a secretive cult founded by a man called John Leal, a former student with an enigmatic past. However, the situation goes beyond mere jealousy, and when the group perpetrates a violent act in the name of their convictions, Will is forced to confront the fact that the woman he loves is capable of such a thing while also having to deal with once again being in the midst of the religious fanaticism he worked so hard to escape.

There are three elements in The Incendiaries that deserve a moment in the spotlight. The first is the use of language. This relatively short novel possesses great economy of language, but Kwon made sure that every word earned its place on the page. Short chapters and snappy dialogue help the narrative sustain its quick pace, but the author also manages to inject almost every page with a dose of poetry, and that’s what ultimately makes it shine not only in the moment it’s being read but also for weeks after as it is recalled:

“Once, while hiking with my parents, I’d watched a starling flock in motion, the confusion of birds mobbing about like nets full of fish until they’d lifted, all at once, shape-shifting into a braided coil that flung, agile, whip-tight, into the horizon. Pests, my father said—practical, as usual. But I’d thought it an astonishing sight, God’s design made visible, and that was what Phoebe’s playing felt like: the flight of notes rising into shape, a large purpose made plain.”

The second element is the three characters at the center of the novel, which are very different from each other and used in different ways. Will is the main narrator, Phoebe is the changing mystery/floating question mark, and John is the drop of chaotic poison that triggers bad things. Besides the obvious trinity/religious theme, the interaction between these characters, as well as the way Kwon alternates their voices, makes for some engaging, haunting reading. Also, the way Phoebe changes is almost palpable, but there are signs throughout the narrative. Her thoughts are part of what makes this novel the type that demands to be devoured in a single sitting or at least as fast as possible:

“If I were less selfish, I’d have released the hold I had on him, this love-dazed Will, more child than man. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t. He took the stairs to my suite at a full run. Bruises formed at the tops of my thighs. If I went to bed after he did, Will turned toward me, still asleep. I might put my head next to his, but he’d clamp his hot legs around mine. He hauled me in. I tried not to pull loose; still, I did. He protested. Insistent, not quite conscious, he reached for me again. I listened to his pulse. His soft, thin hairs, dandelions strands, shifted between my lips. I breathed them in. Here’s a wish, I thought. Don’t let me go. Until Will, I drifted; he attached me to this patch of earth. He clung all night.”

Lastly, there is enough darkness here to satisfy fans of creepy thrillers and even lovers of horror fiction. That Kwon keeps her writing comfortably rooted in literary fiction does nothing to diminish the impact of the themes discussed and the awful act in the last third of the book. This courage to take the story into very gloomy, dangerous, bloody places pushes The Incendiaries into must-read terrain. The fact that all this happens on a thick layer of religion is just a bonus and a sharp comment on our current sociopolitical landscape:

“The Lord had peeled the flesh of His corpse. He had spread it as a bloodied veil upon this earth, a flailed red carpet to ease His people’s fall. Others might ask how long, but he could wait. Faith is a long patience. Minutes tremble, he told his group, with the hope of revelation. Each particle of dust breathes forth its rejoicing. The stripped Nozhurst trees spelled out the Lord’s writing, if they’d learn to see it. God is, not was. He, John Leal, had called them as heroes. The Lord had laid His hands upon their heads.”

The Incendiaries is one of those deceptively simple novels that eventually turn out to be a multilayered marvel of interconnected narratives. The tale constantly shifts and, like a scared animal, seems to run away from the light that bathes it at the beginning and ends up curled in the dimmest place available. At once a love story, an examination of guilt and loss, and a sharp look at religious fanaticism once it abandons the realm of discourse and enters that of irreversible action, this novel is a superb debut by an author with an authoritative voice, poetic voice.

Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist and book reviewer living in Austin, Texas. He is the author of the novel “Zero Saints,” the book review editor for Pank Magazine, and a columnist at LitReactor. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.

With EXIT WEST, Hamid turns eye to Europe’s mishandling of asylum seekers

 

(Riverhead Books)

BY NICHOLE L. REBER

Once again Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid has captured the zeitgeist. In his latest novel, Exit West, he continues to pull no punches. His earlier novels put the US and “rising Asia” under the microscope, but this time the culprit is Europe. In this novel he puts us in the shoes of the Middle Eastern refugees and we get a glimpse into what it must be like to be forced to flee from one’s homeland, the perils faced at the hands of other terrified, desperate asylum-seekers, and then being cast aside by Westerners, who prove they’re not as glamorous or as kind as Hollywood movies portray.

Hamid’s rigorous observations and capacity to represent diverse perspectives come from having lived in London, the US, and Pakistan. Those experiences appear throughout his corpus as examinations of the turbulent bumps of globalization. Altogether, he writes compelling, if not cutting, stories. His talents result achieving universality in observations and compassion of the human condition. That’s surely helped him achieve international acclaim.

Let’s consider Exit West. His latest release, based on the Syrian refugee crisis, features Nadia and Saeed, two young sweethearts thrust prematurely into a relationship when unrest roils through their city. With a bit of magical realism the couple finds secret doors leading to the safety of Greece, England, and then the US. (See if these doors don’t conjure thoughts of Being John Malkovich.)

Hamid’s essays in The Guardian and Time also take Westerners to task. In fact, most readers will find themselves looking at their patriotism in a way they’ve never been challenged to do before. His scathing essays raise a mirror to us, causing us to wonder if/when we stopped being the land of opportunity. He writes:

“A pair of runaway slaves fleeing the antebellum South, arriving in Boston. A family of Jews fleeing the Third Reich, arriving in New York. A baby boy fleeing the destruction of his home world of Krypton, arriving in Kansas. Most Americans know what must be done with such people. They must be taken in. Given a chance. Allowed to become an equal part of the ­American story.

“How many Americans today would think it right to send the slaves back to the plantation, the Jews back to Europe, the infant Superman back into space? The very idea seems abominable, absurd—un-American.

“Why, then, is there such an outcry over accepting refugees from places like Syria?”

Hamid’s other novels are also tales sprung from today’s news headlines. Consider The Reluctant Fundamentalist. (Director Mira Nair turned it into a gripping film starring Kiefer Sutherland, Liev Schreiber, and Riz Ahmed.) This story takes place primarily in New York before and in the months after 9/11. Told from the perspective of Changez, a Pakistani immigrant who graduates from Princeton, earns a position with an elite Wall Street firm, and falls for WASPY, wealthy Erica. Changez exemplifies the American Dream we still want to pretend exists. Until two planes tear into the World Trade Towers, transforming him overnight into a persona non grata.

“I ignored as best I could the rumors I overheard…: Pakistani cab drivers were being beaten to within an inch of their lives; the FBI was raiding mosques, shops, and even people’s homes; Muslim men were disappearing, perhaps into shadowy detention centers for questioning or worse. I reasoned that these…(things) were unlikely ever to affect me because such things (didn’t) happen to Princeton graduates earning eighty-thousand dollars a year.”

Quotes like this give us a refreshing perspective from an immigrant, a non-American in the country’s saddest moment in almost 60 years. It sheds light on that line between nationalism and patriotism, imploring readers to more deeply consider which side they stand on.

Next comes How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, also published by Riverhead. It’s a modern day version of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, structured in twelve mocking steps on how to rise to the ranks of the middle class. The author has left the setting deliberately unclear: is it India or Pakistan? Nonetheless setting matters only insofar as we get to know a young man, born into a destitute family, the kind who live in the slums that Westerners often assume are the only kind of housing in India. As the man becomes street smarter, he builds a lucrative water business and climbs the social ladder in ways that would have made Ayn Rand beam.

Hamid plugs into humanity’s natural tendency to envy/dislike the wealthy. He allows us to coast on our assumptions that they got that way by skipping morality, respect, and integrity, by marrying for convenience rather than an emotional engagement. He captures the zeitgeist by making us feel like we’re reading about a country transmogrifying before our eyes.

His use of the second person brings us still deeper into the action. Such is the case in a particular scene depicting backroom deals and corrupt alliances that form the backbone of capitalism:

“Yet he suspects it is not these obstacles giving you pause. No, the brigadier thinks, you are wary because you know full well that when the military-related businesses advance into a market, the front lines change rapidly. We get permissions no one else can get. Red tape dissolves effortlessly for us. And reappears around our competitors. So we can move fast. Which makes us dangerous commercial adversaries.”

Hamid’s debut novel was Moth Smoke. He’s also written a collection of essays, Civilization and its Discontents. His work has won or been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Foundation award, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and others.

 

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2032557/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

The Reluctant Fundamentalist film

 

http://www.mohsinhamid.com/trfexcerpt.html

Excerpt of the book

 

http://www.mohsinhamid.com/htgexcerpt.html

How to Get excerpt

 

http://www.mohsinhamid.com/ewexcerpt.html

Exit West excerpt

 

http://time.com/collection-post/4527253/2016-election-refugees/

Hamid’s essay in Time

 

Nichole L. Reber picked up a love for world lit by living in countries around the globe. She’s a nonfiction writer and her award-winning work has been in World Literature Today, Ploughshares, The Rumpus, Lunchticket, and elsewhere. Read her stories on a Chinese cult, wearing hijab in India, and getting kidnapped in Peru at http://www.nicholelreber.com/.