The Incendiaries
United States

The Incendiaries

by R. O. Kwon

Spirituality & Faith Literary Fiction Contemporary Fiction Fiction 2018

Summary

The Incendiaries follows three young people whose lives become entangled through grief, faith, love, and radical belief at an elite American university. Phoebe Lin, a Korean American student struggling with guilt over her mother’s death, meets Will Kendall, a former evangelical who has lost his religious faith but falls deeply in love with her. Their fragile relationship is disrupted when Phoebe becomes involved with John Leal, a charismatic former student who leads a secretive religious group with increasingly extreme convictions.

As the group’s ideology turns toward violence, Will struggles to understand Phoebe’s choices and uncover the truth behind Leal’s mysterious past. Told through shifting perspectives and an unconventional narrative, the novel explores how grief and the desire for purpose can make people vulnerable to manipulation and extremism.

Blending psychological suspense with literary fiction, R. O. Kwon examines the boundaries between faith and fanaticism, love and obsession, and personal conviction and destructive devotion. Set against the atmosphere of an American university campus, the novel asks what happens when the need to believe becomes all-consuming.

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Country
United States
North America
About the author
R. O. Kwon
R. O. Kwon

R. O. Kwon is a Korean American novelist and writer born in Seoul, South Korea. She moved to the United States with her family as a young child and has lived most of her life there. She studied economics at Yale University and later earned a Master of Fine Arts in fiction from Brooklyn College. Kwon made her literary debut with The Incendiaries (2018), a novel about religious faith, grief, love, and extremism among students at an elite American university. The book received widespread critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair. In 2021, Kwon co-edited Kink, an anthology of short fiction exploring desire and intimacy, with writer Garth Greenwell. Her second novel, Exhibit (2024), explores artistic ambition, sexuality, and cultural expectations through the story of a Korean American photographer. Kwon’s work often examines faith, identity, desire, and the experiences of people navigating competing personal and cultural expectations.

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Details
Published
2018
Author
R. O. Kwon