Review
From the book
jacket: A distraught woman writes a
letter to Osama bin Laden after her
four-year-old son and her husband are
killed in a massive (fictional) 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.
Comment: Cleave's first novel
caused considerable controversy when it
published in the UK last summer on July
7th - by terrible coincidence, the same...
Beyond the Book
Cleave's
novel was published in
England on July 7th 2005 - the
same day that four bombs were exploded in London. The UK
publisher immediately
quieted its publicity
machine and took down ads in
the London Underground, and
Cleave posted a note to fans
wondering whether he should
continue promoting
Incendiary. The
reaction from the USA
publisher was quite
different, with Knopf
ramping up their publicity
machine and the initial
print run, and offering
Cleave as a different kind
of commentator on the...
