Literary Friction - Hard Crowds with Rachel Kushner

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