Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Flamethrowers  By  cover art

The Flamethrowers

By: Rachel Kushner
Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $22.49

Buy for $22.49

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

National Book Award finalist

Named One of the 10 Best Books by The New York Times Book Review

New York Magazine’s Number One Book of the Year

Best Book of 2013 by: The Wall Street Journal; Vogue; O, The Oprah Magazine; Los Angeles Times; The San Francisco Chronicle; The New Yorker; Time; Flavorwire; Salon; Slate; The Daily Beast

“Superb.... Scintillatingly alive.... A pure explosion of now.” (The New Yorker)

Reno, so-called because of the place of her birth, comes to New York intent on turning her fascination with motorcycles and speed into art. Her arrival coincides with an explosion of activity—artists colonize a deserted and industrial SoHo, stage actions in the East Village, blur the line between life and art. Reno is submitted to a sentimental education of sorts—by dreamers, poseurs, and raconteurs in New York and by radicals in Italy, where she goes with her lover to meet his estranged and formidable family. Ardent, vulnerable, and bold, Reno is a fiercely memorable observer, superbly realized by Rachel Kushner.

©2013 Rachel Kushner. All rights reserved. (P)2022 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Featured Article: Far Out—The Best Audiobooks of and About the 1970s


Whether you were alive in the 1970s or born decades after, here are some of the best books about the 1970s and some of the most popular best sellers published during the 1970s to give you a better look at this fab, fascinating, and influential era. Whether you're nostalgic or curious about the decade that brought us Watergate and women's lib, Luke Skywalker and the Bee Gees, check out this list of out of sight audiobooks.

What listeners say about The Flamethrowers

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    15
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    12
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    10
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Love her.

Her performance is really good. Some parts of her book were confusing and hard to follow, others were really well written.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellence!

The Flamethrowers is an amazing read. The story is lyrical and very photographic. Highly recommended.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Recommended

Aside from the worst introductory and concluding music I have ever heard in my life, this book is exceedingly well written and interesting, especially from the perspective of a 67-year-old woman, remembering the…….bad old days.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Expansive and metaphorical; interesting story with a unique trajectory.

Timeless themes worth pondering, somewhat (or not so somewhat) randomly couched in the story of a young, daring but naive, woman in a man’s world, a neophyte youth’s wanderings and loose-relation encounters in NYC, indentured servitude of international capitalism, rubber plantation slaves and slavers, greed, revolution, familial loyalty, revenge, naive ignorance, unintentional results, circular Justice. Scenes of Lower Manhattan in the 70’s are interwoven into a young woman’s naive caper into the misogynistic international art scene and thus into an Italian tire magnate’s family and promo business and specifically into the strangeness of Italian post-WW2 revolutionary history, all the while navigating and avenging, however inadvertently, brutal sexism and surviving it, relatively intact. Well-narrated by the author is always a bonus. Waiting in the spitting snow at the bottom of a cross-border ski trail escape from Italy France………this is the end.
Seriously it could all be a dream, a flash of life-before-your-eyes, as wiping out doing 150mph on a Nevada salt flat has to be fatal - motorcycle leathers are not going to save you.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!