On Home Fires And Flamethrowers

Around about this time next week – August 16th, to be precise – I’ll be at the Kilkenny Arts Festival, hosting a conversation between award-winning authors Rachel Kushner and Elizabeth Day (right). I’m hugely looking forward to it: Elizabeth’s HOME FIRES is a terrific piece of work, and Rachel’s THE FLAMETHROWERS has been garnering all kinds of wonderful reviews. To wit:

This exciting double bill presents two young novelists whose new work builds on their award-winning debuts.
  Fidel Castro’s revolution provided the backdrop for Rachel Kushner’s TELEX FROM CUBA, a cinematic coming of age tale that won her the California Book Award. Her new novel, THE FLAMETHROWERS, tells the “brilliant and exhilarating” (Boston Globe) story of Reno, a young artist drawn into the seductive New York art world.
  Elizabeth Day burst onto the literary scene in 2011 with SCISSORS PAPER STONE, which won the Betty Trask Award. Her follow up, HOME FIRES, is an intense portrait of loss, focusing on the parents and grandmother of a young officer whose death on his first posting has devastating consequences.

  For all the details of how to book tickets, etc., clickety-click here …