Motocycle Nightmare: The Flamethrowers

There are three distinct (and connected)  narrative components (I hesitate to call them story lines, as I'm not sure that there is a story) in Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers (great title), at least the first 20 percent of the novel (I have no idea how many pp., as I'm reading it on a weirdly configured Kindle): 20ish narrator riding motorcycle across Nevada (her home state) en route to racing on the Bonneville flats in Utah, circa 1976; same young woman a few months or years before her race (and crash) arriving alone in NYC hoping to get engaged in the arts scene, searching for guy on whom she had a crush back in art school in Reno who had left a year earlier from MYC, and eventually meeting new boyfriend, Valero, well established in the arts scene - a player in all senses - who tries to help her advance her career as a "land artist" (sculptures like big spirals on the ground - there are such things of course - and this is part of her purpose in her racing exploits in Utah - photographing the trails her bike leaves on the sand flats); and finally earlier scenes before and during WWI in Europe focused on Valero's forebear (grandfather, I'd assume) with his early fascination with motorcycles, time in a motorcycle brigade in the war, and post-war building a prototype of the bike that would bear his name and advance the family fortunes (mostly, a tire business - is it based on a real Italian tire company?). Wow, lots of material here - and lots of fine writing. On the positives, Kushner tells her entwined tales with cinematic details - and although sometimes that's a backhanded put down I don't mean it that way here. Many "cinematic" novels are just slightly dressed up screenplays - many mysteries, e.g. E. Leonard's, fit that bill and more power to them - but Kushner's narrative also has a lot of introspection, observation, and narrative voice - as well as a tremendous sense of aptly chosen detail and shrewd observation. I, too, have tried to write about the NYC arts scene in the 1970s, but without the precision and the oblique sensibility that Kushner manages - hats off! The motorcycle-racing episode is quite a surprise - I don't know how she has such knowledge (or imagination) about racing bikes but it feels very true and complete - unlike many other novels that feel like rehashed research (e.g., Goon Squad - which never convinced me the author knew all that much about the music industry). My only concern as I move deeper into The Flamethrowers is: to what extent will these strands come together to form a plot? So far, Kushner has established three situations, but there is not yet any particular conflict, direction, or problem to move the plot forward. The title is very intriguing and I wonder where the main character is headed - what she will do, what drives her, what she's driving at.