Rachel Kushner combines a gritty portrait of life on the margins of contemporary America with a stinging indictment of the US penal system.
A woman is caught in the crossfire between the past and the future in this part-spy novel, part-profound treatise on human history
Sadie Smith – a 34-year-old American undercover agent of ruthless tactics, bold opinions and clean beauty – is sent by her mysterious but powerful employers to a remote corner of France. Her mission: to infiltrate a commune of radical eco-activists led by the charismatic svengali Bruno Lacombe.
Sadie casts her cynical eye over this region of ancient farms and sleepy villages, and at first finds Bruno’s idealism laughable – he lives in a Neanderthal cave and believes the path to enlightenment is a return to primitivism. But just as Sadie is certain she’s the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story.
A work of high art, high comedy, and irresistible pleasure, from the author of the Booker Prize-nominated The Mars Room.
Creation Lake was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024.
Rachel Kushner
About the Author
Rachel Kushner an internationally bestselling author whose work has been translated into 27 languagesA profound and irresistible page-turner about a spy-for-hire who infiltrates a commune of eco-activists in rural France. The prose is thrilling, the ideas electrifying
— The 2024 judges on Creation Lake
Other nominated books by Rachel Kushner