Incendiary

by Chris Cleave (Author)

• Used

  Perfect Paperback
  2009

  $3.27

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $3.27

  A massive terrorist attack on Arsenal's new stadium - a woman grieving for her husband and son - a unique, twisted powerhouse of a novel. Angry, funny, heart-rending and subversive, few first novels are as compelling as this one. From the first sentence of her open letter to Osama Bin Laden, Incendiary's unforgettable narrator won't let you go, and her cry of raw outrage at the murder of her family rapidly develops into something very unexpected. Part thriller, part satire, part memorial to a dead child, it shows us an East End woman trying every way she can to climb out of despair, and a society in the grip of fear and self-interest. It is a story in which everyone is compromised - where personal betrayals reflect national ones, and Britain's class system is a ticking bomb. Shocking but tender, brutal yet hopeful, Incendiary forces us to see what we'd rather not see, yet never fails to entertain. The writing moves from horror to humour with terrifying ease. The power of the storytelling is mesmerising. Cleave has pinned a generation down on the mat and refused to allow it up till it admits it's rotten.

• New

  Paperback
  2009

  $11.38

  You aren't stupid.
  You know there's no such thing as a perfect mother.
  Plenty of other books will tell you there is, but this one won't lie to you.

  I was weak and I cheated and I was punished, but my god I loved my child through all of it.
  Love means you never break, and it means you're stronger than the things they do to you. I know this is true because I have been through fire, and I am the proof that love survives.

  I am not a perfect mother but I will tell you the perfect truth, because this is you and me talking.
  This is my story.