What To Read Next: The Flamethrowers

 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 SoHo, are staging actions in the East Village, and are blurring the line between life and art. Reno meets a group of dreamerswho submit her to a sentimental education of sorts. She begins an affair with an artist named Sandro, 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.  Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers is a thrilling and fearless intensely engaging exploration of the mystique of the feminine, the fake, the terrorist.