Reading guide: Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

A woman is caught in the crossfire between the past and the future in this propulsive nove that is part spy thriller and part profound treatise on human history

Whether you’re new to Creation Lake or have read it and would like to explore it more deeply, here is our comprehensive guide, featuring insights from critics, our judges and the book’s author, as well as discussion points and suggestions for further reading.

Published September 16, 2024

Synopsis

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 while Sadie is certain that her significant talents are leading her towards a successful resolution, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments and 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.

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The main characters

Sadie Smith

Known to us as Sadie Smith (not her real name), she is a highly skilled undercover agent and spy for hire. Her current assignment involves infiltrating eco-leftist groups across Europe. To gain access to the inner circle, she seduces a filmmaker named Lucien, using him as a stepping stone to reach the leader of the commune. Sadie exudes confidence and control, traits she deftly wields to manipulate those around her, making her the formidable force we come to know.

Bruno Lancombe

Bruno Lacombe has retreated from modern society to live in an underground cave in Guyenne, southwest France. He is captivated by prehistory, particularly the fate of the Neanderthals, whom he affectionately refers to as the ‘Thals’. The French authorities see Bruno’s group, a band of eco-activists called the Moulinards, as a threat, prompting Sadie’s involvement and setting the stage for their worlds to collide in unexpected ways.

About the author

Rachel Kushner is an internationally bestselling author whose work has been translated into 27 languages.

She has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize twice, for The Mars Room in 2018 and Creation Lake in 2024. She is also the author of The Hard Crowd, her acclaimed essay collection, and the internationally bestselling novels The Flamethrowers and Telex from Cuba, as well as a book of short stories, The Strange Case of Rachel K. She has won the Prix Médicis, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Folio Prize, and was twice a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and the recipient of the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s and the Paris Review. She lives in Los Angeles.

Author Rachel Kushner — Rachel Kushner
*© Chloe Aftel*

What the critics said

Maureen Corrigan, NPR

‘Creation Lake is an espionage thriller sealed tight in the soiled plastic wrap of noir. Existential dread and exhaustion are its signature moods; double-crossing, seduction and sudden death its plot devices. Orson Welles fans may find themselves humming the iconic theme music from The Third Man as they read Kushner’s latest novel: She’s Welles’ partner-in-grime in terms of her stylized depictions of the world as a spiritual and moral vacuum.’

Rebecca Shapiro, Columbia Magazine

‘Kushner, a two-time National Book Award finalist, is known for her rich, multilayered storytelling, which in past novels has been channeled through a diverse set of voices and perspectives. In Creation Lake, which has already been longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, she uses only one narrator (two, counting Bruno’s e-mails), of questionable reliability. But what a narrator Sadie is. Daring, witty, and intensely cerebral, she upends every spy-novel cliché, propelling the genre into the modern age.’

Anthony Cummings, the Guardian

‘For a long time, the closest the story comes to the pulling of a trigger is a sick cow callously put out of its misery at the halfway point – a bullet fired just to remind us that what Chekhov said about a gun on stage must apply to the four that Kushner’s anti-heroine has stashed up her sleeve. The final 100 pages, pinballing between peril and farce, are amazingly tense: wall-to-wall entertainment, and a real treat.’

Mia Levitin, Financial Times

‘Kushner’s novels are always more containers for thought than plot-driven narratives. But whereas her first three thrummed with energy, dazzling readers, Creation Lake feels more removed. The world of espionage has, of course, provided endless ambience for fiction. But Creation Lake is less spy novel spoof or eco-exposé than anthropological disquisition.’

Estelle Birdy, Irish Independent

‘Sadie’s views on everything from pasta and Italian wines to the script for the perfunctory sex she performs with her duped boyfriend Lucien, delivered with such straight-faced aplomb, are the pivot about which this whole reading experience turns. She says (among other casually insulting things): “Late Debord’s face had grown to resemble that of a dead goldfish clotted with scurf, and I am not being fanciful here, but forensic and precise…”

‘Add to all this a cracker of a plot, and some of the finest sentences in modern writing and really, what you’ve got is a picture of literary magnificence. A shortlist place should be guaranteed.’

What the Booker Prize judges said

‘It’s quite something to wrap a thought-provoking novel of ideas into a page-turning spy thriller, and to achieve a narrative voice that is so audaciously confident – and then subtly undercut it. This is a political novel on many levels: it includes radical leftists, utopianists, a reclusive guru obsessed with neanderthals, the shadowy forces of ruthless capitalism. Through it all Kushner examines how the individual interacts with, and disrupts, ideologies. That could sound dry – but her prose is so juicy, her narrator so jaunty, her worldbuilding so lush, that it’s anything but.’

The Booker Prize 2024 judges with the longlist
*©Tom Pilston*

What the author said

‘I had long wanted to tell a story about a group of young people who decamp from Paris to a rural outpost in France, where they are set on a collision course with the French state. At the same time, I became interested in prehistory, both what can be known about ancient people and what the longing to know actually is, a sense that we have taken a wrong turn, that our ancestors hid messages from us that we don’t know how to read. Why now? Every day is a better time than the day before to ask where we are going and where we have been.’

Read the full interview here.

Questions and discussion points

Rachel Kushner has admitted to being a fan of works of noir, particularly those of 1970s French noir novelist Jean-Patrick Manchette. Discuss how the Creation Lake pays homage to the French noir genre. How does Kushner use the concepts of crime and cynicism to shape her narrative?

Sadie is a charismatic protagonist, who could also be said to be slightly delusional. How does her ability to create and impose her own narrative shape the novel’s themes of truth and reality? Why might her name be significant?

While the character of Bruno is significant to the plot, we only hear from him through Sadie as she intercepts his emails. How might their dynamic and Sadie’s second-hand portrayal affect your perception of Bruno?

In an interview with Lithub, Kushner said Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God was ‘strangely critical’ to the pacing and rhythm of Creation Lake. ‘I wanted to produce an effect like that book had on me, and make chapters that would be kind of spring-loaded,’ she said. How does the structure of Creation Lake, with its short, sectioned chapters enhance the story’s tension?

The novel explores themes of environmental activism, corporate land grabs, and the desecration of natural resources. How do these themes resonate with today’s political and social climate, and what real-world occurrences do you see the author drawing inspiration from?

Bruno’s potentially revisionist theories about Neanderthals and prehistory play a key role in the narrative. What does his fascination with the Neanderthals suggest about his worldview, and how does it connect to his rejection of modern society?

How does Sadie’s immersion in Bruno’s ideologies shape her perspective and actions throughout Creation Lake? In what ways does her growing alignment with his beliefs influence her character development as the novel progresses?

The chapter headings throughout the novel have curious – and sometimes very funny – titles. Did they guide your reading experience of the novel and how do they serve the story?

Sadie argues that the real motivations for human action are ‘not politics. There are no politics inside of people’. How does the novel’s discussion of politics and identity challenge traditional ideas about human nature and morality?

While Creation Lake incorporates elements of a spy-thriller, many readers and critics have described it as ‘a novel of ideas’. Do you agree with this description? If so, discuss the key ideas or themes you believe the novel explores. How did they resonate with you on a personal or intellectual level?