Rachel Kushner

This June Rachel Kushner visits BorderKitchen to talk about her latest novel Club Mars. Romy Hall is 28 and just got sentenced two life sentences plus six years at a maximum security prison in Northern California. Outside is the world from which she is cut off forever: the San Francisco of her childhood days, the stripclub where she used to dance for a living. And her seven years old son Jackson, now designated to her mother’s care, from whom she is estranged. Club Mars is a powerful and unsentimental portrait of a women’s life on the poor side of the American society, and a sharp attack at the American prison system. Inside is the new reality to which she has to adjust to: thousands of women who try to scrape together their life needs, the absurdity of the life in the institution, daily violence by guards and prisoners. Romy’s future is a long and unrelenting straight line. Until she’s pulled out her rut by news from outside, and forced to put her faith back in her own hands.

Rachel Kushner (1968) had an international breakthrough in 2013 with the novel The Flamethrowers, which was on the shortlist of the National Book Award and called best book of the year by several literary critics. She is praised by the successful combination of political engagement and unforgettable characters. A combination which Kushner brings to new heights at Club Mars.