This book had a weird meandering way of telling a story. I was interested in the homosapien stories and connections at the beginning, but then found myself led a different direction. The brief passages of time and topics led to a jumping off of my brain that had a hard time staying connected with the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for this advance e-copy of this book.

I really enjoyed this, despite not having much to say about it! It was strange, it was quick to read, it was both entertaining and thought-provoking. I wrote down lots of quotes, but my favorite is, "Like that baby, I find it impossible not to love Guns N Roses."

Thank you for the ARC! The library will certainly purchase a copy, and I'll probably buy one for my brother for Christmas.

Creation Lake was my first experience with Rachel Kushner. I was very pleased to receive an ARC after her novel was added to the 2024 Booker Longlist. I was originally attracted to the novel based on the story’s setting in rural France, and intrigued by how the narrator’s relationships would play out as she worked to infiltrate and disrupt and enviornmental collective.

There were many things I thought the novel did well. I really enjoyed the main character and dark sense of humor she deployed throughout the book. However, I would not consider this a propulsive or exciting read as someone might expect from a novel featuring a secret agent. There is very little momentum in the first ¾ of the novel to the point, and no part of the plot stood out to me as memorable or impactful. I found the lack of interaction and character development underwhelming. Kushner is very reliant on philosophizing and looking into the influence of external forces on the development of the commune (i.e., Bruno), but she fails to connect these soliloquies to any actions or character motivations in the book.

While I enjoyed scenes featuring the commune, and reflections on their politics, gender roles, and views on work, this end up being an incredibly small part of the novel. I also enjoyed the main character’s reflections on her previous work as a secret agent, but again, would have liked to see this impact the plot or main character’s development in some way. In summary – I think Creation Lake is full of missed opportunities from a writer who is skilled in her craft.

A big thank you to Scribner and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest review. Creation Lake will be available on September 3, 2024.

Sadie Smith, the pseudonym of the anti-hero of Creation Lake, is a former FBI operative now working independently. Her task is to insinuate herself into a group of eco-activists, Le Moulin, who live in a French farming cooperative and want to stop the government from constructing a “mega basin” to advance corporate farming. She enters the group by seducing a childhood friend of the group’s leader. Initially Sadie provides information to her unnamed clients, who are morally ambiguous, about the eco-activists’ plans and activities. It soon becomes apparent that she has the added responsibility to ensure that violence erupts.

In addition to surveilling Le Moulin, Sadie is monitoring their email correspondence with an older generation activist known as Bruno Lacombe. Lacombe is a mentor to the cooperative and believes that the way to heal or cure the wrongs of modern life (in this case factory farming) is not revolt but return to the ancient past.

Intriguing, intellectually stimulating and darkly humorous, Creation Lake is not a book for those uncomfortable with ambiguity. However, it is a searching, probing narrative that asks serious questions about where our future lies.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC in exchange for this review.

I was very intrigued by this book because it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and Kushner is such an acclaimed writer. Kusher is an amazingly talented writer, for sure. But this book didn't quite do it for me and I think it's likely to do with personal taste. The anthropology/Neanderthal discussion didn't grab me and the plot/character development never did concretize for me. Reading this book felt like the process of being shown your seat by an usher at the theater. For the duration, I felt suspended with the usher, awaiting an arrival of some sort, and I never got to my seat/settled into the story.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for this advanced copy! I appreciate your generosity and I hope this book is widely read. Perhaps it deserves another read by me in the future; I may not be its ideal reader at this time.

I really enjoyed her voice and her dry and caustic and acerbic wit. I always enjoy a cunning and formidable anti-hero female protagonist. I liked the unique, dynamic narrative, it created good tension and suspense. I enjoyed the 2 aspects, the cerebral and the anticipatory. The character development was textured and well-woven in the story. I liked the injection of actual historical figures into her story to create authenticity. Sometimes it bogged down a little with Bruno’s emails, but that was probably just me eager to see the action of what happens next as she tries to manipulate and guide this group to extreme action. Her ultimate evolution helped temper my other negative feelings toward because of her entrapping people. All in all, a very good book. Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for giving me the opportunity to read this advanced copy.

I prefer to read books that are a bit more structured and straightforward than this was. I had a hard time sticking with it, though it is well-written, Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is obviously well-crafted, but to my great surprise I found much of it ... boring? Maybe this is a case of misplaced expectations, but this was not what I had hoped for.

First off, many thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for providing me with an ARC, in exchange for this honest review.

Of her previous works, I've only read Kushner's OTHER Booker nominated novel, The Mars Room, and this is much different - but had some of the same qualities and 'issues' that I experienced with that one. On the plus side - the story is unusual and often thrilling and intellectually stimulating; and the author writes really great prose and injects some much-needed humor into some fairly dire situations. Although somewhat reminiscent of Birnam Wood, it is much more philosophical and contemplative, and - for good or ill - lacks that book's Tarantino-esque flashes of ultra-violence.

Most of the 'problems' I encountered are more an 'It's not you, it's me' situation - there are LOTS of characters and many of them are so briefly defined that I had trouble keeping them all str8; luckily, since I read it on the Kindle, I made excellent use of the search feature - I'd have been completely lost with a hardcopy. But other than the protagonist 'Sadie Smith' (not her real name!) and the character of Bruno Lacombe - who we mainly come to know through his email messages to the commune that Sadie is infiltrating - and may or may NOT make an appearance in the book itself - most of the other characters are fairly one-dimensional; and even Sadie and Bruno are so enigmatic that they are hard to grasp (which is kinda the point!).

I also didn't really cotton to the book's structure - which is rendered mainly in brief passages that jump around in time and topic, again making it difficult for me to follow and put pieces together (I'm old and my brain is slow!!). The clues as to what is actually transpiring are doled out in drips and drabs, and I am still not sure I quite got it' all.

Interspersed with these short passages are longer diatribes that deal with philosophical, anthropological, and astronomical topics - these were usually quite interesting and relevant, although sometimes they seemed to be shoehorned in just so we knew Kushner is a LOT brighter than us mere mortals.

Regardless, I think it made for an intriguing and thought-provoking read, and I wouldn't be surprised if Kushner winds up on the shortlist once again. As it's the first of the Booker longlist for me to read, am not quite sure of its chances of taking the prize, however.

“Sadie Smith” is a former (fired) FBI spy, now working for shadowy business/governmental clients. As Creation Lake opens, she has infiltrated a small leftwing commune in France in order to incite them to subversive action. Sadie’s entry into the group is through a love interest, but she becomes increasingly entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, who lives in an underground cave and who mentors the group through emails that not only instruct, but also promote a return to the ancient past (Neanderthals). As Sadie is pushed by her client to spur the group to action, she finds herself caught up in an increasingly violent narrative.

This is not a book for those who like answers and who are uncomfortable with ambiguity. This book is claimed to be more like Kushner’s earlier work, The Flamethrowers, than her later, The Mars Room. I’ve only read the latter, so I can’t comment on this point. (I liked The Mars Room – 4 stars – and don’t recall it as being obstruse.) As I write this, Creation Lake has just made the longlist for the 2024 Booker Prize and I think deservedly so – it’s a book that feels right as a Booker Prize nominee and Kushner fits as one of America’s top novelists.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner Publishing for allowing me access to this e-ARC.

Creation Lake is a fiercely unique novel, reading as a cross between literary fiction and political thriller. Our protagonist, “Sadie,” has left her government-sanctioned spy work in favor of the private sector, currently serving as a honeypot operative infiltrating leftists in rural France. She has an innate curiosity, but no inner politics as she only works in service of her missions.

Part of Kushner’s brilliance is her ability to reflect history and politics as they are. The leftist collective Sadie infiltrates is not only comically led by a Guy Debord fan boy, but is reminiscent of Tarnac 9/Tiqqun in their rural anarchism and efforts to sabotage government intervention as part of their anti-capitalist, pro-climate praxis.

Interspersed throughout the novel are emails from Bruno Lacombe, an anarcho-primitivist/John Zerzan type, to the group as he tries to lecture this younger generation on the importance of studying prehistory and the relationship Neanderthals had with the earth as a potential solution to our climate crisis, which he seems to root in the first agricultural revolution. While working with the collective in their attempts to disrupt France’s plan for megabasins, Sadie finds herself increasingly interested in Bruno’s philosophy (which she surveils through hacking his email account) even as the group increases their distance from this older, luddite forefather.

The writing is simultaneously sharp and funny. The book is incredibly well paced, striking an appropriate balance of politics/history/philosophy with plot-driven action. I’d recommend this text for anyone interested in leftist discussions on activism, progress, agriculture, or bureaucracy, those fascinated by autonomous zones and rewilding efforts, or folks who found Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood to be particularly intriguing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the e-arc.

4.75 stars, forthcoming September 3.

This is a spare and plot-driven literary novel about a spy who infiltrated a group of environmentalists. It has an interesting espionage story intertwined with philosophical musings. It’s hard to point out who this book is for, perhaps Antifa types who want to read something thoughtful while planning their next transgression.

Kushner's secret agent novel is in many ways less spy and more a series of intriguing stories about the characters included in this twisty tale of a group of eco-liberal folks living on a commune. Our 34-year-old American secret agent woman is driven, ruthless, and unexpectedly funny. She's on a strange mission where readers sometimes see her egging the people on to be eco-terrorists, and seducing them the rest of the time, She is fascinated by Bruno, a guru of sorts to a rather seemingly harmless group of ecological-minded commune people, yet, Sadie, our secret agent appears to be the most obsessed with him. The novel is filled with clever tales involving the past, the future, and often times the present, which becomes less and less clear to readers as they follow her on this madcap journey.

This is the first book by Rachel Kushner that I have ever read! I am now officially a fan! I loved this so much. I even feel smarter having read this book. Brilliant!

This book was very confusing. The plot is far-fetched and hard to follow. This is a spy novel, but I can't say this book was ultra thrilling. Rachel Kushner is an interesting writer. She has a huge imagination which I appreciate but I don't think this book will be for everyone. I absolutely love the cover art. It's so striking and mysterious, I just wish the novel would've blown me away. I liked parts of this book, but I don't think it's very memorable.

I love a good spy novel, and Rachel Kushner takes the genre to a literary level, making it an excellent book. Sadie Smith is calm, calculating, and fearless. This is one to watch for and read as soon as it is published on September 3.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

Amazing book. Yet another great one from Kushner. Cannot wait to read her next book, but prob won't get to do that for some time.

Another home run from Rachel Kushner, this time in the form a novel about an un-named freelance spy infiltrating an environmental activist cult in Europe. A cross between the Americans and the episode of SVU where Olivia Benson goes undercover with Earth First, the novel is spare and spooky and the narrator almost emotionless. The end is almost slapstick and a bit unsatisfying, but overall totally fantastic.

From the author of The Flamethrowers, comes a new novel about spies, communes and Neanderthals.

In Creation Lake we meet Sadie, a young American spy tasked with infiltrating a French commune of anarchists called Le Moulin. She is an ex FBI operative and she is incredibly talented. The question is whether she is righteous in her work. Sadie follows Lucien, via faux chance meeting in town into the commune, creating a love interest between them, but it's the emails from Bruno, the de facto leader of the group that moves the story.Kushner creates tension, interest and beauty in her spy story!
#Creationglake #rachelkushner #scribner

Not as interesting as Kushner's last two novels in my opinion. The narrator is a spy who infiltrates left-wing groups and sets them up for jail time. She's kind of a cipher, which is understandable in her line of work but off-putting as a reader. She reads the email missives from one of the guys who inspired the commune she's infiltrating, and I found those sections more interesting and kind of mystical. But overall I think Kushner's cool-girl shtick is running out of steam.