The Flamethrowers - Or How I Learned To Grow The Fuck Up

Here we are, back again, dear readers.

(I'm afraid this might be a very deep, sentimental Drunk Book Review. I have a lot of thoughts on this book, which I'm afraid are not going to come across below, as well as a lot of wine in my system. I apologize if this gets too sad and too real.)

Tonight, we have a wonderful installment, with a review of The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner. It was a NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER, WHAT! And a top ten best book of The New York Times Book Review in 2013. AND a National Book Award Finalist.

But enough acclaim, let's get down to brass tacks. This book is fucking fabulous. I felt like, from the second I picked it up to two weeks after finishing it (and beyond), that I was sucked into a whirlwind. The writing is superb. The story is ingenious. The characters are very real and very relatable. I loved this book so much, that after a week's break and 150 pages of reading, I decided that I "couldn't remember what was going on" just so I could start it over again. In fact, several times throughout the book, I'd use that excuse and re-read passages. To say this is one of the most impactful books I've read in recent history, that would be an understatement.

So, this book is super great. It's basically a coming of age story, one in which I felt like I was going through my own coming of age while reading it. The book follows this young woman, Reno, throughout her first year in Manhattan. She just graduated art school and moves to New York to become an artist of the West. She's interested in land art, motorcycles and incorporating her speed into her art. She falls in with a group of artists through her much older boyfriend Sandro, who is the heir to a major Italian motorcycle company, Valera. Through his connections, she returns West to race across the salt flats and ends up crashing her motorcycle. She injects herself with the Valera crew while recovering and ends up racing for them to break the female speed record. They hire her as a model for the company. She returns to New York and Sandro is unhappy with her new role and disapproves of her plans to join the company in Italy. Ultimately they decide to go, tragedy strikes and she ends up following a Valera employee through the riots in Rome, forcing Reno to begin to think for herself and grow the fuck up.

The story is crazy captivating. In the beginning it goes back and forth between the history of the Valera family and Reno's arrival in New York. There's also this really cool mixture of fact and fiction that makes this all feel so real. And having lived in New York as a young woman, fresh out of college, I felt like I could relate. Particularly to the beginning. The author has a perfect way of describing the loneliness of moving to a big city when you're young and lost. Every moment has the opportunity to become something, the city surging around you, while you're completely isolated.

Another aspect of this book that I very much loved was the relatability to Reno. She's this young girl that's still finding herself, and despite the author's strong voice, is very passive. I felt insanely frustrated with her, as I've been with myself throughout my life. She kind of lets these situations happen to her, follows these men into both success and imminent danger and acts as more of a silent observer in her own story. Finally, in the end, she begins to realize that she has her own voice and takes control of her life. The narrative kind of takes on this idea, interrupting her story frequently to jump back to a man's story. Even in the end, her boyfriend Sandro hijacks the narrative and tells his side of the story. As a feminist, I hate this, but I also see the point of it and love the stylistic choice.

(Speaking of feminism, this is a side rant. I read this article that talked about how some consider this book to be a Great American Novel, while others trivialize it, simply because it's a woman writing it. A great point is brought up that when women write about certain themes, they're considered not worthy, but when men write about them, they're celebrated. (Like love.) Total and utter bullshit. This novel is a great american one. It absolutely speaks for a generation, who gives a fuck about whether that generation is mostly women. Don't women take up a majority of the population anyway? (Check out the article: http://www.salon.com/2013/06/05/rachel_kushners_ambitious_new_novel_scares_male_critics/))

Back to the novel. The men in this book are all big giant idiots. But also very common in real life, I know oh so many of them. All the characters, really. I think this is my favorite part about the book, that I know every single character mentioned here. I've met them, fell in love with them, hated them.

The pretentious artists. The New York Characters (with a capital C).

Giddle, the best friend and enemy. The one-woman show.

Sandro, the older gentleman that is looking for someone that is completely and utterly devoted to him. The man that is manipulative and secretive, and as Kushner puts it, "A man who apparently loved women so much he had cheated on [them] the moment it was convenient to do so."

Ronnie. He's my favorite. The self centered man-child that only thinks of himself. He treats his lovers as indisposable things and refuses to think of them as anything other than objects. The most hurtful thing that I've ever read in literature, and only because it's a reality with these types of men:

Sandro was looking at a snapshot of a woman staring intently at the camera, young and blond, and clearly smitten with her picture taker.
"That's not part of my show."
"Just something for you to look at," Sandro said.
"Something for me to look at. Pretty in the face, as they say... I'm keeping her on layaway," Ronnie said, "a layaway plan. She's on reserve, held for me, and I pay in small increments."

It was heartbreaking to follow such a smart young woman remain a secondary character in her own story. It was killer to follow her losses, her missteps, her heartbreaks. There are so many instances throughout the novel where Reno is simply observing and listening to men talk about their thoughts and ideas. Being within her head, the reader is able to see that she has much smarter thoughts and ideas than any of these men. Watching this character grow up through the course of close to 400 pages, I think has helped me to do so as well. I'd like to be more active in the story of my life. And isn't that what a great novel is supposed to do? Keep you captivated, impart some knowledge, and change your life?

COCKTAIL TIME, BITCHES!

Oh shit readers! I wrote this drunk book review last night and TOTALLY FORGOT TO POST IT. I was definitely too drunk to be writing a drunk book review, but hey that's the point right? Good thing that I'm still drunk today so I can post it!

So, my latest book review is of The Essential Bar Book, another wonderful addition to my library from the all wonderful bloggingforbooks.org. Yes, it is a cocktail book and yes, this post is another excuse to drink with my friends!

After attending a very boozy brunch with the Jerrsicas, we reconvene at the apartment and I say, "HEY GUYS, LET ME MAKE YOU SOME SPECIALTY COCKTAILS!"

But let's talk about the book for a second. The book is pretty good, it explains a lot of bar terms and has hundreds of recipes. The design of the book is nice and elegant. It totally feels like it belongs in The Great Gatsby, which, hey! I love! (THE BOOK, NOT THAT HORRENDOUS MOVIE). However, I don't like the fact that there are no pictures in the book. I think that any book with recipes should have pictures. Also, the organization is kind of stupid. It's not based on ingredients or types of alcohol; it's alphabetical. "Oh I want to make a drink with gin!" Let me go through the entire book and see what recipes call for gin. Kind of stupid.

Regardless,  I tried for so many weeks to pick a cocktail and make a drink for friends or family. You would think that his would be easy. It was not.

My family are a bunch of alcoholics; I grew up in bars. No, seriously, I grew up in bars. So when I went home for the holidays, you'd think that me announcing that I needed to make a cocktail for everyone, that would go over well. No, I just got drunk off of red wine and Jameson for two weeks.

So here we are, two weeks later. The Jerrsicas are over and thirsty.

It actually took a while to pick out a cocktail. This had been done over the course of a few days. I had Jerrisca pick out some recipes that sounded good, we picked two and got all the ingredients for those. Oh, side note. Bevmo is the best. I went the other evening and got the ingredients for one drink,  which actually worked for several.

So, my friends come over and I start by making everyone THE EL PRESIDENTE.

The El Presidente is a rum based drink, a cuban drink. It calls for a coupe glass. I don't have one of those. I have several water glasses, a wine glass, and a glass I stole from a bar on a terrible date. I absolutely needed to take my bourbon to go that night. These glasses work for all drinks in the book, no matter what the recipe calls for, because I am not some kind of richie rich with a hundred different kinds of glasses.

People talked about how RUMMY the El Presidente was. We watched football while we drank and it seemed to go by pretty quickly. Everyone seemed to like it, but thought that it was strong. Jerrsica thought that the drink was a pretty color!!

So yeah, the El President was strong. Super strong. But we powered through.



Then I made the Bees Knees. It was super ginny. Nothing special. So far though, it was everyones' favorite, because they liked the honey (thank you Culver City Famers Market.). We started playing games, so that probably helped. Oh, it should be noted that everyone is probably FALL DOWN DRUNK AT THIS POINT.

The last drink I made was for sure the best, The Clover Club. Everyone thought it was super delicious and wanted to drink ten thousand of them. I was nervous about this one because of the egg white, but it was a huge hit. It was probably the easiest too. It was just like, mashed up raspberries, sugar water, lemon juice and gin? I think? I don't know, it tasted like heaven. And Jerrsica and I beat the Jerrsicas in Cranium, so that probably helped.

Overall, I think the cocktail making was a success.

So, would I talk about this book while drunk? Yeah. I mean, similar story to the rest of the reviews, once I needed to write the review, this book was all that I could talk about. I even offered my sisters' bartender boyfriend a guest spot on my blog if he helped me execute and write this review.

Oh, the other ranking is would I recommend this book while drunk. The answer is yes, OBVI. If someone is drunk and looking for a drink, I would totally tell them to check out this book to learn how to make ANY DRINK EVER. Or I would just tell them to go to a bar and order one.