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Incendiary by Chris Cleave
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Incendiary

by Chris Cleave

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2271324,895 (3.97)16
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Loved the first half of this book, though the second half was a bit slow and bizarre for me. I absolutely adored the main character, and as always Chris Cleave has a way of capturing dialect on a page that makes it come alive. According to his site, it's going to be coming out as a movie- thoughts? ( )
  Colie025 | Sep 19, 2009 |
Recommended by Booksloth and an absolutely gripping book. I really could not put this one down.

Told as a series of letters from a grieving wife and mother to Osama Bin Laden, the unnamed woman describes her life since a terrorist attack on the Arsenal stadium during a crucial football game killed her husband and son, along with more than 1000 others.

Despite the grim subject matter the book is beautiful and manages the rare achievement of being both heartbreaking and funny without seeming to try too hard to be either. Scarily, Osama Bin Laden is not the worst character in the book.

This is very possibly the best book I have read this year and I recommend it to everybody. ( )
  Jodyreadseverything | Sep 4, 2009 |
Story of a fictitious May Day terrorist attack in London--written in the form of a letter to Osama bin Laden. I found it disagreeable and contrived. ( )
1 vote Gary10 | Jan 14, 2009 |
Fantastic story of what may happen when Governments persue terrorists and democracy is lost. Shocking and unexpected. ( )
  chiara7 | Aug 13, 2008 |
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Epigraph
... a most terrible fire broke out, which... not only wasted the adjacent parts, but also places very remote, with incredible noise and fury. - inscription on the Monument to the Great Fire of London, north side
Dedication
For Louis and Clemence
First words
Dear Osama, they want you dead or alive so the terror will stop. Well I wouldn't know about that I mean rock 'n' roll didn't stop when Elvis died on the khazi it just got worse. Next thing you know there was Sonny & Cher and Dexys Midnight Runners. I'll come to them later. My point is it's easier to start these things than to finish them. I suppose you thought of that did you?
Quotations
London is a city built on the wreckage of itself Osama. It's had more comebacks than The Evil Dead. It's been flattened by storms and flooded out and rotted with plague. Londoners just took a deep breath and put the kettle on. Then the whole thing burned down. Every last stick of it. I remember my mum took me to see the Monument to the Great Fire. London burned WITH INCREDIBLE NOISE AND FURY is what the monument has written on it. People thought it was the end of the world. But Londoners got up the next day and the world hadn't ended so they rebuilt the city in 3 years stronger and taller. Even Hitler couldn't finish us though he set the whole of the East End on fire.
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Book description

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0307262820, Hardcover)

A distraught woman writes a letter to Osama bin Laden after her four-year-old son and her husband are killed in a massive suicide bomb attack at a soccer match in London. In an emotionally raw voice alive with grief, compassion, and startling humor, she tries to convince Osama 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.

But the bombing is only the beginning. While security measures transform London into a virtual occupied territory, the narrator, too, finds herself under siege. At first she gains strength by fighting back, taking a civilian job with the police to aid the antiterrorist effort. But when she becomes involved with an upper-class couple, she is drawn into a psychological maelstrom of guilt, ambition, and cynicism that erodes her faith in the society she’s working to defend. And when a new bomb threat sends the city into a deadly panic (“It was a panic like the darkest dream and the more people ran out onto the streets the bigger the panic got like a monster made of human beings”) she is pushed to acts of unfathomable desperation—perhaps her only chance for survival.

A surreal vision made brilliantly, viscerally powerful and undeniable, Incendiary is a stunning debut novel.

The author responded to the tragic events which took place in London on July 7, 2005. Visit his website to read this response, and participate in a forum on the book. (Link provided below.)

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:57 -0400)

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