_The Flamethrower_ is a 2013 novel by American author Rachel Kushner and is set in New York during 1975 and follows the character of Reno, a young artist. She arrives in New York with the intent of creating art themed around motorcycles and speed.
She falls in with a group of like-minded people and eventually falls in love with Sandro Valera, a sculptor and erstwhile scion of a tire and motorcycle company. Reno decides to travel with Sandro to Italy where she meets his family but soon finds that things are far more complicated than she could ever believe.
While writing _The Flamethrowers_ Kushner drew on personal experiences during and after college, as well as her interests in “motorcycles, art, revolution and radical politics”. The book was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by the editors of the _New York Times Book Review_.
Rachel Kushner (born 1968) is an American writer, known for her novels _Telex from Cuba_ (2008) and _The Flamethrowers_ (2013). After completing her MFA, Kushner lived in New York City for 8 years, where she was an editor at _Grand Street (magazine)_ and _BOMB (magazine)_. She has written widely on contemporary art, including numerous features in _Artforum_. She is currently an editor of _Soft Targets_, praised by _The New York Times_ as an “excellent, Brooklyn-based journal of art, fiction and poetry.”