The Flamethrowers
Rachel KushnerArdent, vulnerable, & bold, Reno is a fiercely memorable observer, superbly realized by Rachel Kushner. “Scintillatingly alive… A pure explosion of now” (The New Yorker).
Arriving in New York to pursue a creative career in the raucous 1970s art scene, Reno joins a group of dreamers & raconteurs before falling in love with the estranged son of an Italian motorcycle scion & succumbing to a radical social movement in 1977 Italy.
The year is 1977 & Reno – so called because of the place of her birth – has come to New York intent on turning her fascination with motorcycles & speed into art. Her arrival coincides with an explosion of activity in the art world – artists have colonised a deserted & industrial SoHo, are squatting in the East Village, & are blurring the line between life & art. Reno meets a group of dreamers & raconteurs who submit her to a sentimental education of sorts. She begins an affair with an artist named Sandro Valera, the semi-estranged heir of an Italian tyre & motorcycle empire. When they visit Sandro’s family home in Italy, Reno falls in with members of the radical movement that overtook Italy in 1977. Betrayal sends her reeling into a clandestine undertow.
The Flamethrowers is an intensely engaging exploration of the mystique of the feminine, the fake, the terrorist. At its center is Kushner’s brilliantly realized protagonist, a young woman on the verge. Thrilling & fearless, this is a major American novel from a writer of spectacular talent & imagination.
"The controlled intensity & perception in Rachel Kushner's novels mark her as one of the most brilliant writers of the oncoming century. She's going to be one we turn to for our serious pleasures & for the insight & wisdom we'll be needing in hard times to come. Rachel Kushner is a novelist of the very first order." - Robert Stone
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Rachel Kushner is the bestselling autho