Our guest this month is the novelist Rachel Kushner, who we have been huge fans of ever since we read her novel The Flamethrowers. Rachel’s latest book is a collection of essays, The Hard Crowd. Though it covers a lot of ground, the collection returns often to the rebels and misfits and outsiders living on the edge of society - a theme in her fiction too. Inspired by Rachel's work, for this show we're talking about ‘hard crowds’ in literature, from the ultraviolent gang in Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange to musicians living on the edge in their memoirs. So, climb on the back of our hogs and take a ride with us for the next hour of Literary Friction…

Recommendations on the theme, Hard Crowds:

Octavia: Nicotine by Nell Zink https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/nicotine?variant=32557710442574

Carrie: Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson https://us.macmillan.com/author/denisjohnson/

General recommendations:

Octavia: No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/no-one-is-talking-about-this-9781526629760/

Rachel: The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/138738/tove-ditlevsen.html

Carrie: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/306/306246/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy/9780241330890.html

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This episode is sponsored by Picador: https://www.panmacmillan.com/picador