Description
From Rachel Kushner, Booker Prize finalist and two-time National Book Award finalist, comes a new novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France
'Reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture' HERNAN DIAZ
'Compulsively readable... Kill Bill written by John le Carre' OBSERVER
Sadie Smith - a thirty-four-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 influenced by the beliefs of a mysterious elder, Bruno Lacombe, who has rejected civilisation tout court.
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.
Beneath this parodic spy novel about a woman caught in the crossfire between the past and the future lies a profound treatise on human history. Creation Lake is Rachel Kushner's finest achievement yet - a work of high art, high comedy and irresistible pleasure.
About the Author
Rachel Kushner is the author of The Hard Crowd, her acclaimed essay collection, and the internationally bestselling novels The Mars Room, 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 Medicis and been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, 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 books are translated into twenty-seven languages.
Reviews
As I read Creation Lake, I was amazed that Kushner was pulling off such a feat. I kept thinking, 'this can't possibly work' and yet it kept working. I was completely immersed and mesmerized. It's a highly plotted fast-paced noir and yet full of ideas and depth. I've never read anything like it. Rachel Kushner is the most exciting writer of her generation -- Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho
Creation Lake reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture. Only Rachel Kushner could weave environmental activism, paranoia, and nihilism into a gripping philosophical thriller. Enthralling and sleekly devious, this book is also a lyrical reflection on both the origin and the fate of our species. A novel this brilliant and profound shouldn't be this much fun -- Hernan Diaz, author of Trust
Wild and brilliantly... Think Kill Bill written by John le Carre: smart, funny and compulsively readable * Observer *
Kushner is one of America's greatest living authors * Daily Telegraph *
Kushner is a young master. I honestly don't know how she is able to know so much and convey all of this in such a completely entertaining and mesmerising way -- George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo
A thrilling and prodigious novelist -- Jonathan Franzen, author of Freedom
Book Information
ISBN 9781787331747
Author Rachel Kushner
Format Hardback
Page Count 416
Imprint Jonathan Cape Ltd
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 500g
Dimensions(mm) 222mm * 138mm * 40mm
