Introduction

Jesse Pearson: Rachel Kushner is a novelist and essayist. Her most recent novel, 2018's The Mars Room, deals with a woman who has been sentenced to life twice over as she navigates the prison system. This month Scribner is releasing The Hard Crowd, a collection of Rachel's essays from the past 20 years. There are also essays dealing with writers like Marguerite DuRas, Dennis Johnson, David Ratre.