She doesn’t see writing as a profession as the fundamental commonality between writers. Kushner explains that she believes the literary world is separate from the writing world. James Wood asks her about her relationship to the literary world. She cites reading Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (1985) as the moment she understood what she wanted to create. Mythology hardens into truth, she says to explain her trajectory towards novelist. But in college, she explains, she was interested in other areas like politics. She likes listening to people to talk, how they talk, and how their tone is (when she reads from the novel, she gives each character a distinctive voice performance). School was easy, she said, and she believes she could have been academic–but writing allowed for something else. She says she felt she was totally useless for any other profession other than writing. She has also edited Grand Street and BOMB. Before leaving for Los Angeles, Kushner attended Columbia’s MFA program. Kushner arrived in New York City in her youth and fell into the art world, a scene she felt more comfortable in than the literary scene. The Flamethrowers appeared on many best of 2013 lists, and to celebrate the release of the paperback edition of the book, Rachel Kushner read from the novel at Powerhouse Arena.
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