The Flamethrowers

(Paperback)

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An extraordinarily ambitious big American novel about a young artist and the worlds she encounters in New York and Rome in the mid-1970s - by turns underground, elite, dangerous FROM THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THE MARS ROOM SHORTLISTED FOR THE FOLIO PRIZE 2014 LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION Reno mounts her motorcycle and sets a collision course for New York. In 1977 the city is alive with art, sensuality and danger. She falls in with a bohemian clique colonising downtown and the lines between reality and performance begin to bleed. A passionate affair with the scion of an Italian tyre empire carries Reno to Milan, where she is swept along by the radical left and drawn into a spiral of violence and betrayal. The Flamethrowers is an audacious novel that explores the perplexing allure of femininity, fakery and fear. In Reno we encounter a heroine like no other. Best Books of the Year- * Guardian * New York Times * The Times * Observer * Financial Times * New Yorker * Telegraph * Slate * Oprah * Vogue * Time * Scotsman * Evening Standard * Shortlisted for the National Book Awards 2013

Reviews

Scintillatingly alive... It ripples with stories, anecdotes, set-piece monologues, crafty egotistical tall tales, and hapless adventures -- James Wood * New Yorker *
Kushner is rapidly emerging as a thrilling and prodigious novelist -- Jonathan Franzen
One of the most thrilling and high-octane literary experiences I have had in ages -- Colum McCann * Sunday Independent *
It's so good, it's a little frightening it makes any fretting over the state of the novel look plain silly * Guardian *
An adrenalin-fuelled coming-of-age novel * Sunday Telegraph *
Unfolds on a bigger, brighter screen than nearly any recent American novel I can remember * New York Times *
An ambitious and serious American novel. The sentences are sharp and gorgeously made. The scope is wide. The political and the personal are locked in a deep and fascinating embrace * Colm Tibn *
Dazzling... The Flamethrowers is a virtuoso performance; a ride of ache and pleasure, handled with pinpoint command * The Times *
This glittering novel is both carefully structured and exhilarating * Daily Telegraph *
Rachel Kushners fearless, blazing prose ignites the 70s New York art scene and Italian underground * Vanity Fair *
A bright burning flame of a novel * Spectator *
The Flamethrowers is a strange, fascinating beast of a novel, brimming with ideas, and sustained by the muscular propulsion of Kushners prose Kushner emerges as a wildly gifted artist filling a sketchbook with thrilling, eye-catching scenes -- Robert Collins * Sunday Times *
There is an exhilarating freedom to Kushners writing Taut, vividly intelligent prose -- David Wolf * Prospect *
Sparky and inventive...a riot of a novel * Daily Mail *
Ms Kushners kaleidoscopic prose carries the novels shifts in location and person, and the fast-paced rhythm harnesses the thrill of adventure * Economist *
Swells with a daunting bravado * Irish Times *

Author Bio

Rachel Kushner is the author of The Mars Room, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. Her previous novels, Telex from Cuba and The Flamethrowers, were both New York Times bestsellers and finalists for the National Book Award. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's and the Paris Review. She lives in Los Angeles.