Valera comes of age in fascist Italy and Reno inhabits New York’s East Village in the 70s, the two have much in common. This is the very spirit of revolution, which animates each of the worlds she depicts.ĭespite the fact that T.P. and abroad, Kushner demonstrates the ways in which history is yoked to the individual, and not the reverse. As her narrative leaps from pre- and postwar Italy to Amazonian rubber harvesters to underground militant groups in the U.S. Kushner continues to cross cut between his story and Reno’s, priming readers for the many collisions between these seemingly disparate worlds that follow. Valera, as he narrowly escapes from a skirmish with German soldiers while serving in Italy’s cycle battalion in 1917.
The Flamethrowers opens with Sandro’s father, T.P. While the novel is mostly concerned with their relationship, it also examines notions of time, history, tradition, and upheaval. Kushner’s “innocent and ambitious” protagonist quickly falls for Sandro, an Italian émigré and reluctant heir to the tire and motorcycle company his father founded after WWI. There, she meets the accomplished-and much older-minimalist sculptor, Sandro Valera his best friend, Ronnie Fontaine and other members of the city’s thriving art scene. It explores these themes largely through Reno, “a Nevada girl and a motorcycle rider” who moves to New York City in the mid-seventies to become an artist. Or immolation.īoth unassailably cool and intellectually satisfying, Kushner’s second novel-after 2008’s Telex from Cuba-is about the trifecta of power, sex, and speed that drives modernity, as well as those forces that impede it. The man removes the nozzle from the gas pump and “jerk it at the woman,” sloshing gasoline “on her bare legs.” He then pulls a book of matches from his pocket, lights one after another, and flicks them at her, “little sparks-threats, or promises-that died out limply.” The woman makes a meager protest, dries herself with a paper towel, and finally “smile at him like they were about to rob a bank together.” This playful yet sinister exchange serves as a kind of synecdoche for Kushner’s work as a whole The Flamethrowers is a novel that courts violence, keeping its reader tense, alert, and braced for impact.
While motorcycling cross country, she stops for gas and overhears a couple half arguing, half flirting at the pump next to her. Early in The Flamethrowers, our protagonist, Reno, witnesses a strange and startling scene.
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