The Incendiaries

May 7, 2018
Written in dazzling, spare prose, Kwon’s debut tells the fractured story of three young people looking for something to believe in while attending the prestigious Edwards University. There’s Will Kendall, a one-time “kid evangelist” who transferred from a Bible college after losing his faith in God. He soon meets—and falls in love with—Pheobe Lin, a Korean-American pianist wrestling with the death of her mother in an accident for which she blames herself. And then there’s John Leal, a charismatic cult leader and former Edwards student who claims to have been held captive in North Korea; he offers Phoebe the supposedly noble cause she craves. Will watches in horror as Phoebe joins Leal’s so-called Jejah, a circle of quasi-religious radicals that soon sinks into right-wing terrorism targeting abortion clinics. Phoebe disappears following a fatal accident involving members of her group, leaving Will to untangle Leal’s web of deceit and find out what happened to Phoebe. Kwon’s novel expertly addresses questions of faith and identity while managing to be formally inventive in its construction (the stream-of-consciousness style, complete with leaps between characters, amplifies the subject matter). In this intriguing cult story, Kwon thoroughly explores her characters’ motivations, making for an urgent and disarming debut.

May 15, 2018
A first-time novelist explores identity, deception, and obsession."In the estival heat, he set his back against the cold stone of a tomb. He plucked a honeysuckle stalk sprouting from what had once been men; he sipped its bit of juice. In time, lying in the dirt, he, too, might nourish future pilgrims. If he had one petition for himself, it was this: that he be made useful." How one reacts to this passage is almost certainly an indicator of how one will react to this novel as a whole. Readers who delight in encountering seldom-used words and precise depictions of physical and mental landscapes are likely to love Kwon's writerly style. Her book is shot through with carefully limned descriptions and unexpected language--"orphic," "sacerdotal," "shibboleths," "harlequin." Readers who are interested in plot and character, however, may well be less satisfied despite the fact that the basic elements of a gripping story are present. Will Kendall is a poor kid and a lapsed evangelical. When he arrives at Edwards University, he invents a preppy persona to hide the fact that he's waiting tables to support himself and his mother. Phoebe Lin was a child prodigy, the product of her own gifts and her Korean immigrant mother's aspirations for her. Phoebe's decision to quit the piano and her mother's death leave her unmoored when she arrives at Edwards. And then there's John Leal, a charismatic Edwards dropout who has become a cult leader. It's clear from the beginning that these three characters are moving toward cataclysm, but....The narrative is so slow and so superficial that the climax is anticlimactic. The biggest problem is that Will is both the dominant voice and the least interesting character, which diminishes the reader's ability to understand Phoebe and John. This does make some thematic sense, in that Kwon is clearly interested in performative selfhood and the inability of truly understanding another person, but....This leaves the reader with an outsider's perspective.Aesthetically pleasing but narratively underwhelming.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2018
Looming death, missing parents, God, and reinvention turn an unlikely pair, Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall, into lovers at privileged Edwards University in upstate New York. In the fresh, transformative independence that is college life, Phoebe can forget her aching connection to the piano, hide her debilitating guilt over her mother's tragic death, and eschew her estranged father's religion. Will, who transfers from a small Bible college on scholarship, finds distance from his failed adoration of God, worry about his ever-fragile mother, and dismissal of his father. Will's hunger, physical and emotional, is magnetic, holding the desperate lovers together until dropout John Leal?a savior to some, a charlatan to others, with his zealous stories of horrific imprisonment in a North Korean gulag?invades their orbit, and violence implodes their bond. Kwon's debut has all the elements of what should be a stupendous success?exquisite prose, vivid characterizations, and astute observations?yet somewhere between spark and explosion, the narrative strays unnecessarily from the essential, then becomes overly elliptical to provide a persuasive finale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2018

Told in three voices, this debut novel explores connections among people. The sparsely written first-person chapters alternately tell the story of college students Will Kendall and his Korean American sort-of girlfriend Phoebe Lin, who attend Edwards University. Interspersed are third-person narrations about John Leal, the enigmatic half-Korean cult leader of Jejah, to whom Phoebe is drawn and who threatens to come between the couple. In an effort to salvage his relationship with Phoebe, Will makes an attempt to attend Jejah meetings and tries to keep her from falling even deeper into the organization. When a clinic is bombed, killing five young women, Will tries to convince himself that Phoebe was not involved in the incident. VERDICT Kwon successfully defines her characters' depth while maintaining an air of intrigue and suspense. Throughout, she looks at the imperfections in all our lives and how our interactions may lead us down paths unbeknownst to ourselves. With a breezy yet intense style, newcomer Kwon is a writer to watch. [See Prepub Alert, 1/8/18.]--Shirley Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2018

Having won numerous awards (Yaddo, Breadloaf), Kwon gets a chance at full-scale fiction. Will, a Bible school transfer to a prestigious university, loves glamorous Phoebe, guilty over her mother's death and attracted to a cult whose leader has an obscure connection to North Korea and Phoebe's Korean American family. Then the cult bombs several buildings.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.