Sisters Book Club February Selection: The Flamethrowers

Hello, Sisters Book Clubbers!

Okay, that doesn’t sound like I intended it to. If I add an apostrophe and make it singular, it actually sounds like a description of my four-year-old son. But you know what I mean.

A bit of business for this snowy (for me, at least) January day:

Our February book will be The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner, which was a nominee for the 2013 National Book Award. (James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird won. That one’s on my to-read list, too, but I figured we’d start with this one mostly because I feel an affinity with runners-up.)

From the book jacket:

The year is 1975 and Reno—so-called because of the place of her birth—has come to New York intent on turning her fascination with motorcycles and speed into art. Her arrival coincides with an explosion of activity in the art world—artists have colonized a deserted and industrial SoHo, are staging actions in the East Village, and are blurring the line between life and art. Reno meets a group of dreamers and raconteurs who submit her to a sentimental education of sorts. Ardent, vulnerable, and bold, she begins an affair with an artist named Sandro Valera, the semi-estranged scion of an Italian tire and motorcycle empire. When they visit Sandro’s family home in Italy, Reno falls in with members of the radical movement that overtook Italy in the seventies. Betrayal sends her reeling into a clandestine undertow.

Care to read with us? Go out and pick up your copy and then let us know you’re reading with us, either by commenting below (and linking to your blog, if you plan to write about the book there) or by joining us on our Goodreads Group. Or you could do both!