an unfinished novel

The Flamethrowers: A Novel
by Rachel Kushner
Scribner; Reprint edition (April 2, 2013), 404 pages
Kindle edition $12.99, Amazon paperback $15.30
Purchased during a BookBub sale for $1.99
(or maybe it was Book Riot)

I was looking for my next book to read when this title showed up in one of my BookBub emails on sale for $1.99. The book got significant critical recognition, so I thought it worth a try.

The novel started out engaging enough. The first person female narrator graduated from the film program at the University of Nevada, Reno in the 1970s. She moved to New York City, but returned to Nevada where she set out across the salt flats on a borrowed Valera motorcycle, that being a fictional Italian make. Her boyfriend, Sandro Valera, is a company heir and an artist. He had obtained the bike for her, which she managed to destroy on her salt flat run. She then proceeded to break the land speed record for women on a different motorcycle which an Italian had used in an attempt to break the men’s land speed record.

Back in New York she spends a lot of time in the art world with Sandro and his group. Eventually I felt that the novel was just bogged down with the goings on there in New York. My iPad Kindle app told me that I was 41% through the book and I just didn’t care what happened to the narrator, her boyfriend, or the other characters.

Time to move on to another book. I probably got my $1.99 worth.