The Hard Crowd

The Hard Crowd is wild, wide-ranging and unsparingly intelligent throughout. * Vogue *
One of America's most exciting writers . . . A brilliant collection of art and literary criticism, reportage, and autobiography. * Daily Telegraph *
She writes as well as any writer alive about the pleasure of a good motor doing what it was designed to do . . . Cool and wise, with real power and control . . . This book has a real gallery of souls . . . As strong a statement about artistic purpose and sensibility as I've read in a while. -- Dwight Garner * New York Times *
She seems to work with a muse and a nail gun, so surprisingly yet forcefully do her sentences pin reality to the page. -- Kathryn Schulz * New York Magazine *
I honestly don't know how she is able to know so much (about motorcycle racing, Italian radical politics) and convey all of it in such a completely entertaining and mesmerizing way. -- George Saunders
Kushner at her most freewheeling . . . Luminously beautiful . . . 'The Hard Crowd', which closes the book, allows us to see how Kushner has evolved over the twenty-year span of this collection. -- Michael LaPointe * Times Literary Supplement *
New Journalism given a new lease of life . . . And then there's the frank pleasure of her sentences . . . I'm glad to taste something this sharp, this smart. -- Olivia Laing * Observer *
She's going to be one we turn to for our serious pleasures and for the insight and wisdom we'll be needing in hard times to come. -- Robert Stone
If you want to ride in a famous motorcycle race, then hang out with Keith Richards in 1990s San Francisco and finally consider the work of Marguerite Duras - and who wouldn't? - all you have to do is pick up this wide-ranging book of journalism. -- Bethanne Patrick * Washington Post *
Rachel Kushner's wonderful new book The Hard Crowd is a personal favourite . . . It's an exhilarating, voracious collection. -- Martin Colthorpe * Irish Times *