Rachel Kushner in Conversation with Hua Hsu

 

In conversation with Hua Hsu regarding her new book, Rachel Kushner was incredibly articulate and knowledgeable about such subjects as May 68 and other French political movements, which inform her new novel about an unreliable spy infiltrating a group of ecoterrorists in rural France. This narrator is "not forthcoming," Kushner emphasized, and perhaps not as good at reading people as she thinks. Meanwhile, the ecoterrorism group is nominally headed by a man who has retreated from the modern world to a cave but nevertheless sends long email communiques. The passages Kushner read helped uncover the humor in what otherwise comes off as a serious book deeply engaged with contemporary politics and crises.

The best part of the convo came at the very end, during the audience Q&A: when asked whether she preferred fiction or nonfiction in her leisure time, Kushner nodded to her interviewer, calling him a brilliant memoirist. Then she turned back to the audience: "Fiction forever for me, baby."

photo: thanks