Rachel Kushner went to Mexico in pursuit of her first love - motorbikes. Her wild ride of an essay collection describes living fast and free in a crowded world.

In her twenties, Kushner competed in the notorious Cabo 1000. She crashed at 130mph and miraculously survived. Soon after, she decided to leave her controlling boyfriend and manoeuvred her way into a freer new life. Her new book The Hard Crowd examines artists, writers and her own hard-living youth growing up in San Francisco, “huffing nitrous for kicks while earning $1.85 an hour”. In nineteen razor-sharp essays, she takes in friendship, loss, social justice, art and more, via the world of truckers, a Palestinian refugee camp, the American prison system, the San Francisco music scene and more.

Rachel Kushner is the author of The Mars Room, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. Her previous novels, Telex from Cuba and The Flamethrowers, were both New York Times bestsellers.

The Hard Crowd: Rachel Kushner