Incendiary

I am a woman built upon the wreckage of myself.

In an emotionally raw voice alive with grief, compassion, and startling humor, a woman mourns the loss of her husband and son at the hands of one of history’s most notorious criminals. And in appealing to their executioner, she reveals the desperate sadness of a broken heart and a working-class life blown apart.

“Cleave has achieved something rare. . . . [The narrator] will break your heart and remind you how, in the face of the uncontrollable and the inexplicable, humor can allow one to survive.”—San Francisco Chronicle




“An audacious, provocative voice . . . [Cleave] has a clear and disturbing vision of the psychological effects of an attack on a city population.” —The New York Times Book Review