A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. Chapters Character Analysis. Important Quotes. Essay Topics. Discussion Questions. The Flamethrowers is a historical fiction novel published in by the American author Rachel Kushner.
It follows the story of Reno , a young woman experiencing the turbulence of the s in New York City. An aspiring artist, Reno finds herself in remarkable situations both in New York and abroad in Italy. Kushner weaves Italian and American history to highlight how people experience the implications of the societies and histories they inherit.
Kushner subverts typical genre and novel structures and creates her own type of unstructured novel that still holds the necessary parallel structure to develop nuanced characters. Get access to this full Study Guide and much more! In , a young woman moves to New York City after graduating from art school in her home state of Nevada.
She is lonely but eager for adventure. Her only friend is a diner waitress named Giddle, who seems to make up most of her stories. One night, the young woman is out exploring the city and unceremoniously meets Thurman and Nadine, a wealthy-looking couple who invite her to stay and drink with them.
A friend of theirs appears. He is young, handsome, and nicknames the woman from Nevada Reno. The night is turbulent, but Reno ends up in bed with the friend, whose name she does not know. Reno finds a job with a film production company. One day her bosses tell her that a man has been asking about her. They begin dating and Reno is whisked into a highly chaotic and intoxicating lifestyle of wealthy creative and intellectual types.
