Incendiary (Cleave) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
1. Incendiary opens with "Dear Osama," and is framed as a novel-length letter from a devastated mother of a terror-attack victim to Osama bin Laden. How does the epistolary structure impact your appreciation of the narrator's plight? Is the narrator's run-on narrative style intended to be indicative of a semi-literate upbringing, or to convey the urgency of her situation, or to suggest that she is psychologically unbalanced?

2. "And when I get nervous about all the horrible things in the world I just need something very soft and secret and warm to make me forget it for a bit." (p. 9) How is the narrator's sexual promiscuity connected to her anxiety? To what extent does her sexual encounter with Jasper Black on the day of the stadium attack seem reprehensible?

3. How does their shared awareness of class differences establish an immediate boundary between the narrator and Jasper Black? What is it about their social and cultural differences that makes them especially attractive to each other?

4. How does the setting of Incendiary in London resonate for you as a reader? Does London function as a character of sorts in the novel, as it undergoes changes as a result of the attacks?

5. "Well Osama I sometimes think we deserve whatever you do to us. Maybe you are right maybe we are infidels. Even when you blow us into chunks we don't stop fighting each other." (p. 50) How does the narrator's disgust with some of the Arsenal and Chelsea bombing victims reveal her own awareness of her society's failings? Why does the author choose to include details from the attack and its aftermath that are unflattering to the victims?

6. How did you interpret the narrator's interactions with her deceased son? To what extent do you think the author intended these glimpses of the boy as evidence of the narrator's post-traumatic mental condition? How might they also function as a kind of magical realism?

7. "I am someone who is having a surreal day," she said. "This afternoon I had a light lunch with Salman Rushdie. We drank CÔte de LÉchet. We discussed V.S. Naipaul and long hair on men." (p. 107) To what extent is Petra Sutherland a caricature of a self-involved snob? Does she transcend that characterization through her involvement with the narrator? What does her behavior in light of the narrator's discoveries about the May Day attack suggest about her true character?

8. In the text of her letter to Osama, the narrator imagines newspaper headlines that comment directly on her experiences. How is this propensity connected with the narrator's sense that her life offers the kind of spectacle that others only read about? How does it relate to her relationships with the journalists Jasper Black and Petra Sutherland?

9. "Yes," she said. "We have better sex when I look like you." (p. 163) How is Jasper Black's love triangle with the narrator and his girlfriend, Petra Sutherland, complicated by their similar appearances? How does Petra's pregnancy change the narrator's relationship with her? Does Jasper Black's staging of a dirty bomb in Parliament Square reveal his social conscience or his stupidity?

10. How does Terence Butcher's revelation about the truth behind the May Day attack impact his relationship with the narrator? What does his decision to tell the narrator the truth suggest about his feelings for her? To what extent do you feel his behavior before and after the attack is justifiable?

11. "A thousand City suits die and it's good-bye global economy. A thousand blokes in Gunners T-shirts die and you just sell a bit less lager." (p. 188) How do the social concerns introduced in Incendiary hint at the tensions between working class and middle class London in the twenty-first century?

12. Why doesn't author Chris Cleave give his narrator a name? To what extent does her anonymity impact your ability to identify with her as a reader?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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