It’s taken me a while to get through all the essays because it’s the kind of book I pick up, read an essay or two, then put it down. It’s a great way to read this collection, to give the essays breathing space to settle. Kushner is brilliant. Super smart.

Having not read any of Kushner’s fiction, I did not really know what to expect from The Hard Crowd but I am usually a fan of female-authored essay collections so I was intrigued. Happily, I was very pleasantly surprised. Kushner has had a very interesting life and addresses a wide variety of topics (including San Francisco, a Palestinian refugee camp and a quite frankly terrifying sounding motorbike race), making this one of the most broadest essay collections I’ve encountered. While I don’t share her love of cars and motorbikes, her passion shines through. Overall, I was impressed and I will now pick up a copy of The Mars Room!

These essays were so insightful on a whole range of topics. I planned to dip into them but read them straight through in one sitting. Sublime.

The Hard Crowd is a superb and diverse collection of essays. Rachel Kushner chronicles the forgotten and relatively unknown in a frank and refreshing way.

This is a new author for me. It seems strange to start a new author reading a collection of essays but I enjoy this format and I decided to have a read. I thought these essays were excellent, covering a wide range of subjects, some more personal to the author such as their own memories and life experiences and some which tackle much larger issues and some which fall into the category of literary criticism. Each essay was different so didn’t feel repetitive. I wanted to keep reading when I reached the final essay, The Hard Crowd. I will definitely check out her fiction.

I really enjoyed reading The Hard Crowd by Rachel Kushner - a diverse and fascinating batch of thoughtful essays full of wonderful characters and insights.

From autobiographical accounts of working in theatres and bars in San Francisco to a review of work of prison abolitionist Ruth Gilmore, Kushner's essays cover a range of topics with a few common themes. Her book research brought her to Italy which features in few essays as does San Francisco the city she moved to in childhood and where she spent formative years.

Kushner is also a fan of cars and motorcycles which also pop up more than once. Unsurprisingly Kushner reviews a number of authors' novels - such as the slightly obscure Brazilian Clarice Lispector but also the more familiar Cormac McCarthy.

The Hard Crowd is a collection of essays about culture and politics. I had read Rachel Kushner's novel The Mars Room and loved it (even went on to buy it for a friend), so I was intrigued to read this collection. There really is a mix here - something for everyone.
The opening essay about Kushner’s participation in an illegal motorbike race on the Baja Peninsula was probably my favourite - it sounded terrifying and exciting all at once. She does seem to like anything to do with motors, as a later essay showed. This one wasn’t really for me, but this is a collection where there is something for everyone. The chapter on wild cat strikes was interesting, as were the ones where she describes her formative years in her hometown and the music concerts she went to (loved these too). The last essay in the book played out as though it was on a film in my head.
The essay about prison reform was really thought provoking, as was that of when Kushner visited a Palestinian refugee camp. I could easily have read more of this one - no matter how saddening it ultimately was.
Rachel Kushner really can write. As she did in The Mars Room, each of these essays really evoked a time and place and made this book pretty hard to put down.
Many thanks to Jonathan Cape for inviting me to read this via NetGalley.

Rachel Kushner delivers a masterclass in writing to engage the audience. Here are two decades of her essays on politics, culture, writing and cars.

A 2018 Booker prize finalist for The Mars Room, Kushner writes about a Palestinian refugee camp, 1970s wildcat strikes, Alain Delon, Elvis, the writing of Clarice Lispector and Cormac McCarthy, and growing up in San Francisco.

Her personal reminiscences place the reader in the scene. We share her nostalgia for a motorbike race on the Baja Peninsula, and an IHOP dining booth where the young Rachel was a waitress.

From the opening line to the last word, Kushner hooks you in with her conversational tone.

Vivid.

My thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for the ARC.