This is one of the most uniquely brilliant novels I've read this year, maybe in several years. I'm immensely grateful to the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review. it allowed me to read it prior to the announcement of the short list for the Booker Prize, and I can emphatically say it's worthy of the win.

This novel is a rich and nuanced character study of Sadie Smith (certainly not her real name), who works in the "private industry" as a spy after being fired by an American government entity. Sadie has been dispatched to France to infiltrate what essentially turns out to be a group of not-quite-radical hippies who like to raise hell (albeit from a distance) about government incursions upon their way of life. The most recent issue that's raised their hackles is a plan that would deprive farmers in remote, rural France from enough water to continue farming. Sadie is a master = she's hacked into the emails of Bruno, the enigmatic Wizard of Oz-like leader of the group, and spends her evenings reading his rambling philosophical esoterica about the superiority of neanderthals to homo sapiens, the Cagot people and the persecution they endured, Polynesian sailors and their precocious navigation skills, and so on. Sadie becomes slightly infatuated with Bruno, and makes it her business to pry into pieces of his tragic past. Meanwhile, she makes convenient friendships with both members of the organization, and those outside of it, and she takes one lover which seems to serve no purpose other than to give Sadie something to do at night.

Time passes - several weeks, perhaps - and it becomes clear that Le Moulin (the name of the group) are harmless. There is no plan, aside from blocking the road at a local fair. It falls far short of the sort of "eco terrorism" that Sadie was allegedly sent to expose.

Which brings me to my next point - is Sadie an unreliable narrator? To the reader she seems exceptionally savvy, smart, street-wise. But she's also exceptionally attractive (big boobs and all) and that clearly gives her an advantage among the men. But who are her employers, who she only refers to as her "contacts" through out the novel? Are they good guys? Bad guys? Have they played Sadie for a fool or is she a willing collaborator? It's never quite clear, and I continue to be fascinated by that murkiness.

This isn't a perfect novel. It's very long - about 400 pages - and I don't know that length was warranted. Sadie had many interactions with people that never made a difference in the story. But the cleverness and originality and subtle humor come together to showcase that Kushner is a master, at the top of her game. I can't wait to read her next novel.

Rachel Kushner’s latest novel is a captivating dive into the world of espionage, deceit, and the complex psyche of a secret agent. The novel follows a thirty-four-year-old American woman—fierce, sharp-witted, and undeniably beautiful—sent to France for a mission that blurs the lines between right and wrong. As usual, Kushner's writing is razor-sharp, thought-provoking, and laced with humor that adds a refreshing twist to the often dark subject matter.

I loved how the author crafted such a multifaceted protagonist—her dry humor and ruthlessness kept me engaged, and the writing itself is undeniably masterful. However, it took some time to fully immerse myself into the story, and the pacing felt a bit slow. But once I got into the rhythm, it was worth the ride. If you’re in the mood for a smart, witty read that makes you think, this is a great pick.

This was a fascinating wide-ranging novel of ideas and also a compelling undercover agent narration. Rachel Kushner's Sadie Smith, our protagonist, is a hard-drinking agent working for a somewhat shady private group. She is a fascinating character mix of sheer hubris, high intelligence, and questionable ethical foundations. She infiltrates a (fairly mild) band of French eco-activists in order to catch them plotting illegal activities,, and perhaps even incite them to violence.. Not so much a thriller than a slow character build and a meditation on how the individual can incorporate the past, in terms of the lessons from human history, and an uncertain future in carving out their days.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC copy.

I should probably start by saying that I’m obsessed with cults and high-control groups—so when I saw the synopsis for Rachel Kushner’s "Creation Lake," it had my attention instantly. Add to that the fact that I’ve heard nothing but praise for Kushner’s other novels, and I was all in. And guess what? This book absolutely delivered on all the culty, weird vibes I was hoping for.

The story follows Sadie, an undercover agent sent to infiltrate a commune in France. I'm not going to lie—the plot is totally unique. Sadie is morally gray enough to keep things interesting, but I was still rooting for her the whole time as she navigated one increasingly dangerous situation after another. She’s sharp and savvy, but not without her slip-ups, which makes her feel human amidst all the chaos of trying to keep her cover.

Parts of the book flew by, and I couldn’t tear myself away, but there were moments when I felt... disconnected, wishing things would just move along. Also, the side characters sometimes blurred together, and I found myself struggling to remember who was who. Either there were too many, or they just weren’t fleshed out enough for me to care.

That being said, Rachel Kushner’s writing lives up to the hype. It’s sharp, witty, and packed with twists that kept me hooked. While this wasn’t an instant favorite for me, I still recommend you check it out.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for an advanced readers copy - all comments and thoughts are my own.

I’ve always been intrigued by Kushner’s novels but I needed the Booker Longlist to finally give me the push to give her a try. This novel was definitely an interesting read. While at its core it’s a spy story, and Kushner succeeds at setting tension, it’s so much easier to appreciate this novel when you go in with the expectation that the plot is a courier for a lot of philosophy regarding humanity. I appreciated a lot that Kushner did here, the philosophical musings were interesting to read about, the protagonist intriguing and the dry wit was easy to appreciate. I did however find myself wishing for more from the ending. Despite the slight dissatisfaction, I did enjoy the journey Kushner created.

Creation Lake by @realrachelkushner
I went into this novel thinking that it's a spy story. Turned out it wasn't just that. Yes Sadie Smith (her current alias) is a spy for hire who has been asked to infiltrate and monitor the activities of a French Activist group protesting the megabasins project. That is not just the focus of this novel though. Sadie has managed to hack into the mail correspondence between the activist group and their mentor Bruno Lacombe. I found these discussions riveting. Lacombe freely expresses his views on a range of topics from the Neanderthals to the Homo Sapiens to French class structure to the the means and methods of protesting against capitalism to his experiences during World War 2 and the protests of the 1960s to the science of mapping the stars. These portions of the novel read more like non-fiction and I promptly bought myself the audiobook in addition to supplement the gifted e-ARC from @scribnerbooks on @netgalley (thank you @scribnerbooks). The writing is excellent, the spy plot is 🙄 but as I said I loved the commentary by Lacombe. This one is for fans of The Deluge and Birnham Wood both of which I loved. One more addition to my Booker Prize longlist reading.

Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Thank you, NetGalley and publishers.

Creation Lake is the story of a secret agent, going by the name of Sadie Smith, hired to cause trouble by influencing a group of environmental protesters in a rural area of France. Covertly, she uses all the tricks of her trade to make these people trust her and bring about the outcome her handlers want. But in the end, everything changes as does she herself, becoming irrevocably changed by a series of emails she reads, sent by one of the group’s founders.

In Rachel Kushner’s fourth novel, Creation Lake, Sadie Smith is at a place in her life where she is starting to wonder if the work she is doing is worth the risk. After being fired from the US government as a secret agent due to a poor finish to one of her assignments, she starts to work around the world as a private agent. For this assignment, her faceless and nameless bosses have hired her to infiltrate a radical group who have plans to stop developments on French farmland. While doing research she meets Pascal Balmy, the leader of the group, and she is able to guess the password to the email of Bruno Lacombe, the mentor of the group. Bruno is a mystery, someone who lives close but off the grid, rumored to be in a cave in the countryside. He uses his daughter’s computer to write the group emails but most of them are ramblings about Neanderthals, Prometheus, Polynesian sailing, and his life. 

The novel unfolds in strange ways, slowly and mostly off of any actual path. The writing is immersive, and even though it might not feel like it is going anywhere, before long you realized that you are a long way from where you started. The character of Sadie Smith, an alias for this mission that is chosen because it is sort of interesting yet hard to find anything if Googled, is a mixture of hard coldness and soft yearning. She spends so much of her social time keeping all of her stories straight, trying to get everyone in the anarchist group to trust her, that when she is done, back in the house that she is using, she can do nothing but drink beer and enjoy the quiet. The hours where she can turn off her secret agent become a haven of piled up empty bottles of beer and wine and dirty glasses in the kitchen. This turns into something that she likes more than having an agenda and needing to talk to people. Before too long, she becomes wrapped in the curiosities contained in Bruno’s emails, and the chances of looking for a new life after this mission grow more and more appealing.

Creation Lake is a stellar novel that starts a little odd, but the cohesion of the different pieces show a novel that is well written and well crafted. In a general sense, I have very little interest in many of the subjects that come up in this book, the thriller/spy aspect does not have much tension, and the conclusion is a little thin, but there is something about Creation Lake, something about it being more of character study than a secret agent adventure story that makes me feel like it is only done well because Rachel Kushner did it. 

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is my first Kushner book and likely my last. The writing is lovely, but the storytelling is a big miss for me.

I found this one to be a real slog, and this is coming from someone who generally likes slow moving plots. There’s a lot of waiting around for something to happen, but the story just never gets around to seeing that through. It’s not really a spy novel despite being billed as such, though to Kushner’s credit it’s a lot closer to what a real world spy actually does. Still, there’s a reason why most spy novels don’t typically strive for that level of realism.

I also thought the setting felt confused, as though the author couldn’t commit to locating this either firmly in our reality or somewhere more akin to a hypothetical reality that *could* exist.

I perked up a bit during the parts where Kushner is giving us anthropological tidbits or when she’s just kind of riffing (again, the writing here isn’t the problem), but the story just never gets to any place that feels satisfying.

This worked for me only in bits and pieces. I appreciate Kushner's wit, though at times I resented being asked to laugh at or with certain characters, or in the middle of scenes where it didn't feel appropriate. At times, the prose is very beautiful -- the final 20 or so pages come to mind -- and I was more on the novel's side in those moments. But my overwhelming feeling while reading was one of boredom, annoyance, and thwarted expectations. I don't know how many more disaffected ironic prettygirl main characters I can make myself sympathize with -- Sadie/Amy/whoever might be the straw that broke the reader's back -- and the central plot tensions, the thriller elements (such as they were), were frankly not involving. I hate to be so down on a book that has so many moments of intellect and beauty, but I'm honestly a little perplexed. How was I meant to relate to this? With an unsympathetic main character, a fractured narrative focus, and no satisfying long lines of emotional or situational tension, I was left really cold on Creation Lake.

This was absurdist in the best way, and covers so many interesting and prevalent topics. I found myself confused by this story in such a satisfying way. I don't read books often where I'm lost but I absolutely need to keep going to see what happens next. Kushner has such a compelling narrative voice, and I cannot wait for more from this author!

I love genre influences in literary fiction, and CREATION LAKE is a great example of this. I picked it up, because I read my way through the Booker longlist every year before the shortlist comes out. I enjoyed FLAMETHROWERS and THE MARS ROOM, but this one might be my favorite by Kushner. It was an unexpected, fun, and thought-provoking with quirky characters and a delightfully unapologetically mercenary character.

Sadie Smith (not her real name) is a spy-for-hire who used to make a living infiltrating eco-terrorist groups in the U.S. but is now on the run in France. She's been contracted for a new job, to set up a kind of commune of people living in rural France. This does not sound like someone I would root for, and yet somehow along the way I did; I couldn't help it. Kushner is master at the 'unlikeable' woman character (that I actually like). This book is funny, smart, and includes interesting ruminations on human (and hominid evolution) and many other things.

One of my favorite Bookers this year! Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

P.S. I saw a few places where this was tagged as science fiction. It's possible there are speculative elements I missed, but I think it is set in the present day. It was more lit-fic x spy novel.

Who is Sadie Smith? Even though the book is narrated from her point of view, the true Sadie remains elusive. What we do know is she is American, in her mid-thirties and has a past as an infiltrator, hired by governments or other unknown parties to join subversive groups and steer them to illegal activities. For her current assignment, as Sadie, she finds herself trying to join a rural French anarchist collective likely involved in terrorist acts to prevent the exploitation of natural resources.

Much like many long settles areas of the world, this region of France has layers of history. There is the present battles over land use, but there is also the centuries old agricultural traditions, a history of peasant revolt and ancient caves where neanderthals lived. It is the latter that occupies the enigmatic figure head of the collective who goes by the name Bruno Lacombe. His philosophy argues for a much more simple lifestyle as was practiced by the neanderthals, influenced partially by his own tragic losses.

Creation Lake is told through short snippets, almost like brief journal entries as Sadie details her accomplishments, delves into past missions, or shares email communications she's hacked. It is with these brief episodic entries that Kushner pulls us into this world. Its rural and small cast, but much import is on this small scale. Who is willing to talk to an outsider, how any group has those loyalty to a cause and others just there to release anger but perhaps not truly motivated. Will Sadie succeed in her mission? Is she really as in control as she presents?

Recommended to readers of unreliable narrators, noir or psychological thrillers.

In Rachel Kushner’s <i>Creation Lake</i>, “Sadie Smith” is a cipher. Other than her linguistic prowess and her notable breasts, she’s a chameleon, an American of undisclosed background who formerly worked undercover for unnamed government agencies. Her first assignment: infiltrating an outlaw biker club. Another assignment: acting as an agent provocateur in a group of radical environmentalists in the western US. Her current job: working for an unnamed agency in France, again undercover and again informing on radical environmentalists.

<i>Creation Lake</i> is simultaneously a mystery and a novel of ideas. The mystery revolves around Sadie: who is she?; what's her motivation?; and why has she chosen a risky, subterranean, and amoral life? Just what makes this malicious, cold-hearted and hard-headed woman tick? <i>Creation Lake</i>'s ideas are many, especially revolving around radical environmentalism, apparently a particular bête noire of Sadie's. Sadie’s been paid to infiltrate and disrupt radical environmental groups not once but twice in two different countries. Happenstance — is this what Sadie’s market now demands? — or choice? Kushner throws in another theme that brought me up short: just what happened to those Neanderthals (or Thals, as they're often referred to in <i>Creation Lake</i>), how and why did they seemingly disappear, and how do their genes persist in our modern gene pool? Here’s <i>Creation Lake</i> at its most speculative and her most interesting: <i>”I am linked, he said, to ancient people not as a vague and baggy ‘idea’ but as little pieces of string examined under an electron microscope. We have material proof. . . of transmigration, of the way in which everyone who came before us left a mark on our genome, adding to the story of our ancestry and evolution. / Spirit travels, he said, from the dead for centuries, for millennia, into the living. Each of us inherits code, blueprint, a set of instructions—call them what you want—from those who came before us, all the way back into the deepest sediments of time.
These codes. . . are genetic lice, which crawl from ancestors to descendent; they travel from the many to the one, right on through human history. How do they make their way? They take a transmigrational highway. . . The lice had helped him understand this.”</i> I'm left wondering whether Thals and their distant genetic descendants will pop up in the Vézère valley
like Bigfoot or the Medieval Wildman.

Adding to the fun, Kushner interjects aperçus throughout <i>Creation Lake</i>. Here’s Louis-Ferdinand Céline, there’s Michel Thomas, and yes, over there's Marshal Petain. And let's not forget YSL, Celine, and Hedi Slimane, who Sadie met at a fitting. Like what? Rather than silly name-dropping, these just enhance the mystery that is Sadie.

Rachel Kushner's <i>Creation Lake</i> is a pick your own adventure of a novel, and a fascinating smorgasbord. Its mystery is troubling and unresolved, and its ideas are thought-provoking. As Michael LeMahieu says about Ian McEwan in “The Novel of Ideas”, <i>”Ideas animate but never overwhelm aesthetics.”</i> <i>Creation Lake</i> will remain with me long after I've returned it to my Kushner shelf.

4.5 stars

I would like to thank NetGalley and Scribner for generously providing me with an advanced reader’s copy of <i>Creation Lake</I>.

From the fertile mind of Rachel Kushner springs the boastful Sadie Smith of the large breasts “which do not require a bra” and which she later concedes were “expensively done implants.” Sadie is thirty-four years old, tall, pretty but, as she acknowledges, with a bland face that is useful in her line of work. Sadie is an undercover agent. Although Kushner does not give the reader much insight into Sophie’s origin story, we are told that Sadie was once employed by the U.S. government, infiltrating a biker gang and, later, befriending a young animal liberation activist whom Sadie seduced to insure that he would engage in the violent defense of animals. The young man’s entrapment defense was successful, and Sadie lost her job. She is now working in Europe for shadowy employers, taking advantage of her fluency in several languages, and is engaged in the private sector “where there are no supervising officers, no logbooks, and no rules.”

Sadie’s current assignment takes her to Guyenne Valley in France. “Much of the population had fled the region for its lack of jobs, its stagnancy, its disconnection from modern life.” Sadie knows a lot about the region, although she “couldn’t care less about it. I would not be here long, and when the job was finished, I would never see this remote little corner of France again.” Sadie is to monitor Pascal Balmy, a womanizer and the leader of Le Moulin, a group of environmental anarchists. Sophie is to embed with the Moulinards to obtain proof that they plan to sabotage the site of a planned massive reservoir that will divert a river and rob the region of life. “Whether they were a serious threat was irrelevant. Either I would locate evidence, or I would locate a way to implicate them. . . .” Ironically, for all of their liberal activism, the Moulinards rely on the traditional division of labor between men and women and shleter an eleven year old who fathered a child.

To get close to the cautious Balmy, Sophie meets his childhood friend, Lucien Dubois, by “cold bump,” making him believe that their encounter at a Paris bar was an accident. Three months later, they were living together. Lucien did not ask a lot of questions. Sadie claimed that she made her income walking dogs, a solitary and cash-based business. Sadie moves into Dubois’ moldering ancestral home while he is conveniently completing a film in Paris. She befriends Balmy and members of Le Moulin, while monitoring emails between Balmy and his mentor, Bruno Lacombe, a Holocaust survivor and “anti-civer” who stopped seeing people twenty-six years ago after a family tragedy. The near-mythical Lacombe has retreated to a system of caves where he sends emails expressing his fantastical and seductive beliefs in Neanderthals, a failed species, and the Cagots, a persecuted minority. Is Sophie’s cool disdain for the eco-terrorists she is spying on vulnerable to the musings of Lacombe?

No one writes like Rachel Kushner, and I have read and enjoyed each of her rich, idea-laden novels. In “Creation Lake,” Kushner has created a sexy, noir-ish tale about a woman that is utterly unique and beguiling with an inflated sense of self who mistakenly believes that she is conducting the world around her. Kushner’s novel is bold, intellectually alive, perfectly paced, with comic observations about the minutiae of human behavior. In short, it is a pleasure to read. Thank you Scribner and Net Galley for an advance copy of “Creation Lake” which is deservedly long-listed for the 2024 Booker Prize.

While this book isn’t for everyone, I enjoyed it. Covering themes of class, power, surveillance, nationalism, digital piracy, gender norms, and the toxicity of simply living in the modern world are all handled deftly and astutely. The ending left me knocked out and empty but I think that’s the point. Absurdist to a t—Kushner won’t let you have a happy ending.

"Creation Lake" introduces us to Sadie Smith, an American operative undercover in France, tasked with infiltrating the eco-terrorism group "Le Moulin." Typically, I breeze through books described with such covert and thrilling premises within a few days. However, "Creation Lake" took me significantly longer to finish. The book is indeed intriguing, interspersed with chapters on diverse subjects like anthropology, history, and astronomy. While these additions are very interesting, they frequently disrupted my immersion in the story, as I found myself diving into wild side quests on Wiki to understand unfamiliar topics (the Cagots, anyone?) 

The book’s pace also felt sluggish, with many moments where I was expecting more action. "Creation Lake" introduces a lot of characters, making it challenging to keep track of them or form a deep connection. I particularly wanted to learn more about Sadie Smith, but the narrative only offers surface-level insights into her character. Although I appreciated the storyline and Sadie’s snarky commentary, the conclusion was underwhelming. After the book's build-up involving Sadie and Le Moulin, I expected a more impactful ending.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing the ARC of "Creation Lake." I rate it a solid 3 stars.

When Rachel Kushner comes out with a new book, it’s worth paying attention.

“Creation Lake” is told from the perspective of a slippery female protagonist known to us only as Sadie Smith, an American operative and former FBI informant who has been contracted by a private client to infiltrate an eco-activist group in rural France. It has been described as a noir spy thriller, and on the surface, it is. Really it’s a character study that examines the weak legacy of the post-1968 Left and the instability of political identities. There’s a lot of great commentary on anthropology, language, art, and addiction, much of it conveyed through wildly compelling emails by the aging activist Bruno Lacombe.

Other reviewers have noted the thematic and stylistic similarities between “Creation Lake” and “The Flamethrowers.” The new novel is arguably more accomplished than its predecessor, showcasing a certified ease and confidence that was overcompensated for in Kushner’s earlier work. It is also less impactful. I love “The Flamethrowers” for all its messy unevenness. “Creation Lake” is smoother and more refined, but it doesn’t hit in quite the same way.

Reading Kushner is like experiencing DeLillo through the lens of Cusk. Terrorism, counterculture, and paranoia are all present, as are plotlessness and amorphous characterization. Subplots often usurp the narrative and the prose is always cool. I could read Kushner for days. Even if “Creation Lake” isn’t my favorite of her novels, it is still far and above almost everything else being published as literary fiction today.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC.

Creation Lake ended up being such a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t sure that a spy story could ever really be my thing, but the intriguing plot and Rachel Kushner’s intellectual approach made it so easy to keep turning the pages.

The protagonist of Creation Lake, a spy we only know by the alias Sadie Smith, is a real achievement of character. I’m impressed by how Kushner made me feel compelled by someone I never learned much about. She’s extremely guarded and oftentimes uncomfortably amoral, but as she infiltrates further into this commune and gets more obsessed with their leader’s philosophies, the cracks start to show in how she presents herself to you. I couldn't bring myself to root for Sadie, but I wanted her to be okay.

And a flawless final chapter to boot!

Not at all what I was expecting. Describing it as a spy thriller is to me an inaccuracy. Sadie Smith, the spy-for-hire’s alias, narrates the story and is in the midst of a sort of spiritual awakening. She’s in the Guyenne region of France where she has infiltrated Le Moulin, a group of subversive individuals trying to stop a planned megabasin project for industrial farming. She has hacked into the group’s emails where she finds Bruno a sort of mentor/advisor who philosophizes about a range of subjects from Neanderthals to astronomy. Sadie is a bold, detached individual whose sole aim is to do the job she was hired for and then disappear. There’s a large assortment of characters with the barest of development. Sadie and Bruno are the main characters and are the ones we get to know the best in this story. It is well written and has been nominated for a prestigious literary award and has received lots of praise. While I enjoyed parts of it, I found other parts to be a little tedious and drawn out. 3.75 stars