The Flamethrowers
by Rachel Kushner (Harvill Secker, £16.99)
The second novel by the American writer Rachel Kushner comes wrapped in praise from people who know what they’re talking about. “Thrilling” says Jonathan Franzen; “ambitious and serious,” says Colm Tóibín. Being told too often and too intently that you ought to like something invites a backlash. Happily, The Flamethrowers is worth the adjectives.
The novel’s narrator is Reno, a young woman who comes to New York in 1977. She soon falls in with a crowd of artists and hangers-on, including Sandro Valera, an older Italian artist who becomes Reno’s lover. The story of Sandro’s wealthy family, who own a famous motorcycle company, becomes fully entwined with Reno’s when she travels to Italy with him to pursue her art and gets mixed up with the violent left-wing actions that rocked that country in the late 70s.
There is an exhilarating freedom to Kushner’s writing. The novel skips from the frontline of the First World War to the Salt Flats of Utah, from a rubber plantation in Brazil to anti-capitalist demonstrations in Italy. One chapter consists entirely of titles that a character is considering for his autobiography. If The Flamethrowers tails off in its final third, the novel remains a pleasure throughout thanks to Kushner’s taut, vividly intelligent prose. Every page bursts with ideas—on art, sex, technology, radicalism—and inventive phrases, from the character who “said ‘cops’ with a tough, flattened New York accent, as if he were beheading the word” to a pair of men, “faces barbecued by sun and wind, suspenders framing regal paunches.”
The second novel by the American writer Rachel Kushner comes wrapped in praise from people who know what they’re talking about. “Thrilling” says Jonathan Franzen; “ambitious and serious,” says Colm Tóibín. Being told too often and too intently that you ought to like something invites a backlash. Happily, The Flamethrowers is worth the adjectives.
The novel’s narrator is Reno, a young woman who comes to New York in 1977. She soon falls in with a crowd of artists and hangers-on, including Sandro Valera, an older Italian artist who becomes Reno’s lover. The story of Sandro’s wealthy family, who own a famous motorcycle company, becomes fully entwined with Reno’s when she travels to Italy with him to pursue her art and gets mixed up with the violent left-wing actions that rocked that country in the late 70s.
There is an exhilarating freedom to Kushner’s writing. The novel skips from the frontline of the First World War to the Salt Flats of Utah, from a rubber plantation in Brazil to anti-capitalist demonstrations in Italy. One chapter consists entirely of titles that a character is considering for his autobiography. If The Flamethrowers tails off in its final third, the novel remains a pleasure throughout thanks to Kushner’s taut, vividly intelligent prose. Every page bursts with ideas—on art, sex, technology, radicalism—and inventive phrases, from the character who “said ‘cops’ with a tough, flattened New York accent, as if he were beheading the word” to a pair of men, “faces barbecued by sun and wind, suspenders framing regal paunches.”
