The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner

Stories of ambitious men, held together by the journey of a young woman wanting to be an artist

The unnamed narrator, an aspiring artist from Nevada, arrives in 1970’s New York knowing no one, but is soon pursued by the handsome Italian expatriate Sandro who makes art from metal boxes and who introduces her to major figures in the art scene. Sandro, heir to the Valera industrial fortune, reluctantly assists the narrator in her artistic quest to race the Bonneville Salt Flats by getting her the latest Valera motorcycle. Soon afterwards, she is invited to Italy to promote the Valera brand. Again reluctantly, Sandro accompanies her to his family estate, where his aristocratic family is simply nasty to her. Our narrator flees to Rome, which happens to be convulsed with proletarian riots. Somehow she gets involved in something secret, mysterious and revolutionary and the novel concludes with her keeping watch over the white snowy face of Mont Blanc. Her story is interspersed with the stories of daring men who don’t care what people say about them. Revolutionaries perhaps.

There is a series of certain repetitive images in this novel; one is that of blank spaces – the unbroken snow, the expanse of salt flats, unmarked spaces that the young woman plans to mark as her artistic project, with her will. She is an artist of the blank space. Sandro’s father, Valera Sr., the fascist industrialist, is also an artist. An artist of destruction. And Ronnie, Sandro’s intriguing friend, is another sort of artist – his art is never specified but here he is an artist of the spoken word perhaps.

The unhappy love story of the narrator and Sandro is interspersed with glimpses into gangs of violent men, the Arditti, the Motherfuckers, the Red Brigades. Men believing they understand the future of humanity.

The book is structured with a number of bravura set pieces – beautifully detailed highly ambitious scenes critiquing war, greed, human nature and artistic endeavor. This magnificent tapestry is held together in key spots with Scotch tape/gimmicks, specifically, the romance between her and Sandro. She becomes a completely passive woman, dependent on him for her identity/wellbeing. It’s hard to believe this tough competitive girl falters when she visits the evil mother in law and I didn’t buy her diffidence. The scenes after she goes to Italy are static and dull, probably because she is completely an observer. Is that deliberate?

Also, the photos embedded in the text feel a little gimmicky, not moving or eerie like in the Sebald novels. I liked how at the end the chronology gets mixed up. Mystery helps. I loved the behind the green door metaphor, and the cake box girls.

Telex From Cuba by Rachel Kushner

A fragile world of clueless American expats is swept into the dustbin of history

For decades in the Oriente, the remotest part of Cuba, American managers have overseen the United Fruit Company sugarcane fields and by extension, the government of Cuba. The United Fruit Company prefers a stable situation to an unstable one and has few scruples about how the corrupt Cuban government maintains the profitable peace.  The head of the company, Mr. Stites, however, a likable well read chap, is sanguine about the educated guerillas in the mountains. He feels he can work with them.  At first.  This novel follows the fortunes of a few of the expats as they experience Castro’s revolution and the destruction of their comfortable bubble. We meet Everly Lederer, fascinated by the book Treasure Island, the young daughter of an engineer recently posted to the nickel mine. Mr. Stities’s teenage son KC, narrates a significant portion of the book. KC’s section also explains the mechanics of sugar production and the dynamics of the revolution (of which many Americans were initially supportive.) There is also a host of minor characters, including cold blooded French guerillas and drunken American wives. They drink a lot, the expats. They like to party.  Rachel K, Mr. Stites mysterious mistress in Havana and the mistress of more than one president, plays a key role in the revolution. Apparently she was a real historical figure, and not a stand in for the author.

The story opens with a bang, as the guerillas set the highly flammable cane fields afire. That act sets the threatening tone, and also lets KC Stites to explain everything about sugarcane processing and the roots of the revolution. In the beginning, the prose seems slightly constipated, careful, like in a first novel maybe. What is impressive is the scope and sweep, the ambition of the scenes, the use of Hemingway and Fidel as characters.

I read this because I loved The Flamethrowers.  This novel didn’t enthrall me the way that one did, although the scope was equally ambitious. I think the problem here was too many samey characters, dissipating the story’s momentum. Also, the narrative consciousness was scattered unlike the other book which maintained an intensity partially because of the first person narration.

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner

An innocent races through the Seventies

Wow. I guess this is what is meant by a tour de force.  The Flamethrowers was very good.   "Reno," the young narrator, likes motorcycles, skiing, making art of lines, making art of her life. She works as a “China girl” at a film store, her anonymous image used as a test of Caucasian skin tones. After moving to New York, lonely "Reno" is spotted by Sandro, an older Italian artist, heir to a rubber and motorcycle fortune, who selects her to be his lover. Through Sandro, she is introduced to the heart of the art world, first class motorcycle racing, and excellent hand jobs. When she accompanies a reluctant Sandro back to Italy, back to the family estate, she meets his dreadful mother and brother and witnesses the labor unrest of Italy of the Seventies. Later, “Reno” gets involved in shady violent anti-capitalist actions. She returns to New York, older and wiser.

The Flamethrowers is, among other things, a novel of ideas. The main one being: Rubber + sweat = tires; Tires + war = money; money + leisure = art. Secondly, it is a historical fiction, recreating a time and place filled with fully imagined eccentric characters. And finally, the book is a demonstration of bravura writing. The novel is filled with brilliantly executed set pieces. The races at Bonneville, the numerous bar scenes with the voluble artists and their illuminating stories, the riot in Rome. I kept having to stop and reread passages.  Also, I enjoyed the thoughtful architectural use of imagery. Images are repeated throughout the book – flamethrowers, motorcycles, a hat. A snow covered mountain. A snow covered mountain at night. One of the themes is women trying to figure out men, figure out the world. In this story, all the characters tell stories. Very entertaining pretty much unbelievable stories.

One quibble: The plot requires that “Reno” understand Italian and I didn’t buy that this working class girl spent junior year abroad in Firenze. But it took me quite a while to come up with that.  Overall, a really stellar novel.