Paperback Launch: The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner, with The New Yorker’s James Wood

Set in part in the untrammeled New York art world of the 1970s, THE FLAMETHROWERS is the story of a young woman – called Reno because she is from there – who moves to New York to pursue artistic ambitions involving speed, distance, and land: “it was an irony but a fact that a person had to move to New York City first, to become an artist of the West.”  Soon enough, she makes friends. They include a former Warhol Factory girl who works as a waitress (anyone can be a success, she tells Reno, but “it’s so much more interesting to not want that”), an imperious gallery owner who is also a possible romantic rival, and an established artist and his wife who invite Reno into their circle. Most importantly, though, Reno meets Ronnie, an elusive, slippery and attractive character, and his best friend Sandro, an older and successful artist from a wealthy Italian family who becomes Reno’s lover.  This loose-knit collection of fakes, narcissists and dreamers submit her to various strains of a “sentimental education”—sexual, intellectual, and aesthetic. THE FLAMETHROWERS, “the best, most brazen, most interesting book of the year,” (New York magazine) is certain to be talked about for years to come.