The Hard Crowd opens with a crash – or at least, the story of one.
Rachel Kushner is speeding down the Baja Peninsula in Mexico at 140mph on her Kawasaki Ninja 600 motorcycle when she loses control and, with it, her place in the famous Baja 1000 bike race. Kushner somehow lives to tell us the tale – one that sets the tone for the rest of her essay collection, which shows us what can be gleaned from (as the collection’s tagline puts it) choosing to live “fast and free”. Whether she’s writing about working in San Francisco’s drug-fuelled dive bars and music venues or getting stranded at a truck stop in Nebraska, Kushner is hard boiled yet keenly present. Like any roadside accident, the book asks: do you want to look, or look away?