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Rachel Kushner Biography

Rachel Kushner (born 1968) is an American writer, known for her novels Telex from Cuba (2008) and The Flamethrowers (2013). She lives in Los Angeles.

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Rachel Kushner Quotes

Motorcycles aren't about gaining agency, I don't think.

Thinking, Agency, Motorcycle, Motorcycles, Think

While it might be true that our reality would suggest that more writers would address these elemental issues of modern life - work, the marketplace, brutality, race - I'm not sure I have enough of a sense in aggregate of what the dominant novelists are doing to comment on why less do, or if less do. Maybe that's partly because I don't feel woven into any kind of fabric of contemporaries; I just read what I read, and do what I do.

Aggregate, Fabric, Kind, Modern, Reality, Work

I’d been listening to men talk since I arrived in New York City. That’s what men like to do. Talk. Profess like experts. When one finally came along who didn’t say much, I listened.

Cities, Like, Men, New York, Say, York

I do study Marcel Proust, for multiple technical virtuosities but also his swerve, as you say, between characters and in scenes. Certain films can help for that, too, in terms of understanding how multiple conversations at a table, or in a room, can take place and remain separate, and dissonant, and also gather themselves, accidentally, into a collective rhythm and an affect.

Character, Dissonant, Help, Helping, Understanding

I like to think each writer is doing his or her part. Feeding the lake, as Jean Rhys said. And maybe there are different lakes.

Different, Feeding, Lakes, Maybe, Part, Thinking

Eventually, I decided that if I was going to really write a novel, I couldn't do it in New York City while holding down a job. You need a constant money source to live in New York City unless you're independently wealthy, which I'm not.

City, Constant, Jobs, Money, New York, Writing

It was not the case that one thing morphed into another, child into woman. You remained the person you were before things happened to you. The person you were when you thought a small cut string could determine the course of a year. You also became the person to whom certain things happened. Who passed into the realm where you no longer questioned the notion of being trapped in one form. You took on that form, that identity, hoped for its recognition from others, hoped someone would love it and you.

Children, Cutting, Identity, Notion, Remained, Years

To be alive is to listen quietly while other people talk. That's how you learn something.

Alive, Listen, People, Talk

There was lots of pleasure in writing The Flamethrowers. Then again, what is pleasure? Some pleasure is easy and other kinds are never quite felt, existing only as the residue of hard work, or more as satisfaction than thrill.

Hard Work, Kinds, Never Quit, Satisfaction, Work, Writing

Art is about play and about transcendent meanings, not reducible to politics.

Art, Art Is, Play, Politics, Reducible

I guess I still feel that way and yet I'm slightly hesitant to insist on that idea, that it "better be fun for the writer. " Or rather, that if it is, then the pleasure is a sign that it's good. Maybe I feel I've read that somewhere, other writers saying it, and I just think there is possibly no formula, and I don't like to read an interview with a writer where they just lay out the doxa of what quality is. It can seem brittle to do that.

Fun, Good, Idea, Quality, Think, Thinking

I was a child but weirdly uninhibited. I talked to people and inserted myself in all kinds of absurd situations. I think some of those life experiences influenced me in terms of the main character of The Flamethrowers. But for the parts where the community of artists are speaking above her level of participation, that probably came more out of my experience of being in New York in the '90s as an adult.

Artist, Character, Children, Experiences, Life, Participation

In short, I'm pretty suspicious of the idea that there's a real and true and authentic world, and then a bunch of false ones.

Real, Ideas, World, Idea, False, Pretty

Leave, with no answer. Move on to the next question.

Answer, Answers, Leave, Move, Moving, Next

I love to be alone, I find it necessary, but I don't know if that's just how I am or if it's an essential ingredient to making, to art. Certainly on a practical level it is. But on the other hand, I think it's a myth that the creative inspiration is locked up inside the person and just needs a quiet space and the right "serious" brooding moment to get released.

Art, Hand, Inspiration, Quiet, Released, Thinking

People are complicated. Personally I don't go in for puritanical people.

People, Complicated, Puritanical, Personally

Danzon is my favorite Cuban music, played by a traditional string orchestra with flute and piano. It's very formally structured but romantic music, which derives from the French-Haitian contradance.

Danzon, Orchestra, Piano, Played, Romantic Music

It's really a misconception to identify the writer with the main character, given that the author creates all the characters in the book. In certain ways, I'm every character.

Author, Book, Character, Identify, Way

The VW doesn’t make you think of Hitler and genocide. It’s a breast on wheels, a puffy little dream.

Breast, Dream, Hitler, Make, Make You Think, Thinking

It's unfortunately true that if you mess up a single detail of the art world the whole thing seems false, and most writers are not in a position to get the details right, because they don't hang around with artists. It's not something you can get the vague gist of. It's too specific.

Art, Artist, World, Vague, Artists

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