Incendiary

July 11, 2005
An al-Qaeda bomb attack on a London soccer match provides the tragicomic donnée of former Daily Telegraph
journalist Cleave's impressive multilayered debut: a novel-length letter from an enraged mother to Osama bin Laden. Living hand to mouth in London's East End, the unnamed mother's life is shattered when her policeman husband (part of a bomb disposal unit) and four-year-old son are killed in the stadium stands. Complicating matters: our narrator witnesses the event on TV, while in the throes of passion with her lover, journalist Jasper Black. The full story of that day comes out piecemeal, among rants and ruminations, complete with the widow's shell-shocked sifting of the stadium's human carnage. London goes on high terror alert; the narrator downs Valium and gin and clutches her son's stuffed rabbit. After a suicide attempt, she finds solace with married police superintendent Terrence Butcher and in volunteer work. When the bomb scares escalate, actions by Jasper and his girlfriend Petra become the widow's undoing. The whole is nicely done, as the protagonist's headlong sentences mimic intelligent illiteracy with accuracy, and her despairingly acidic responses to events—and media versions of them—ring true. But the working-class London slang permeates the book to a distracting degree. Agent, Jennifer Joel at ICM
. First printing 100,000
.

Without theatrics, Susan Lyons nails the shock and grief of an unnamed London resident who has suffered the loss of her husband and child through a fictional terrorist attack by Osama bin Laden. Taking the form of an open letter to the terrorist leader, the novel discusses all aspects of the current debate about terrorism. The story is strongest in the questions the wife and mother asks bin Laden, in particular, how mass murder can make the world a better place. Unfortunately, it gets a bit bogged down with the author's attempt to create a plot involving the British government's possible prior knowledge of the attack. But through it all, Lyons's realistic heartfelt narration holds the work together and makes this a must-hear performance. J.P.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine