Trigger warning for rape.
The Incendiaries, by R.O. Kwon, is a story of boy meets girl, boy loses girl to cult, boy tries to get girl back. Will is a boy from the wrong side of the trailer park who has clawed his way into a elite college. He’s got his dream girl, at least at the beginning of the novel, and is successfully hiding his past and job as a waiter. But then, Phoebe, his perfect girl, meets John Leal and starts to drift away from Will and into Leal’s control. The Incendiaries isn’t the usual cult rescue novel; it’s a lot more complicated than that because Will is no dream boyfriend.
Will chases things. His modus operandi seems to be that he spots something or someone he wants, something or someone that will make his life better. First, that something was religion. Will became a born-again Christian when he was in high school and even when to a Bible college. Things were perfect until Will lost his faith. Then he reinvented himself to go to a private college among the children of the very rich. He slaves away as a waiter to make the money he needs to keep up the pretense. But then he sees Phoebe at a party. He wants her from the first moment. And he manages to get the girl. And things are perfect again—until Phoebe joins John Leal’s cult.
The Incendiaries is told by mostly by Will, with short intervals from Phoebe and little bits of Will’s research about John Leal. It isn’t clear until near the end of the book when and where Phoebe is speaking to us from. Will’s sections drift in time, too, to reveal the arc of his relationship to Phoebe and how he tries to get her back from the cult. In other novels about cults, Will would be a hero for trying to “save” Phoebe. Will is definitely not a hero, though. He is obsessive, about Phoebe and his new life. What really bother me about Will is the fact that he won’t take no for an answer. The cult is bad and getting worse, but I couldn’t whole-heartedly root for Will.
Both Will and Phoebe are seekers. Will wants somewhere to belong. He also wants to forget his past and be able to finally leave it behind. Phoebe wants to atone for something she blames herself for something that happened years ago. Turning to a cult that practices self-flagellation is an obvious choice for someone with as much guilt and self-loathing as Phoebe. Watching them in The Incendiaries is like watching a train wreck, a psychologically interesting train wreck. It asks all sorts of questions about why people join religion, try to reinvent themselves, and why they try so hard to get their way even when it might lead to disaster.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss, for review consideration. It will be released 31 July 2018.