![Creation Lake](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![Creation Lake](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
Creation Lake
From the Booker Prize-shortlisted author
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- Pedido anticipado
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- Lanzamiento previsto: 5 sept 2024
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- USD 14.99
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- Pedido anticipado
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- USD 14.99
Descripción editorial
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 Carré' 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An undercover agent embeds with radical French environmentalists in this scintillating story of activism and espionage from Kushner (The Mars Room). Sadie Smith, a former FBI agent who lost her job after she was accused of entrapment, takes an assignment from unidentified contacts in the private sector. Her mission is to infiltrate the subversive commune Le Moulin, which is led by activist Pascal Balmy and is suspected of having destroyed a set of excavators at a reservoir construction site. Le Moulin's ideas derive from their elderly mentor, Bruno Lacombe, who has spent the past 12 years living in caves. Bruno emerges from time to time to communicate with the group by email, but none of the characters see him in person. In Paris, Sadie seduces a filmmaker friend of Pascal's to secure an introduction to him. Kushner intersperses Sadie's tale with Bruno's colorful claims, such as the alleged superiority of the Neanderthals (their square jaw was a "sunk cost") and the existence of mythological creatures like Bigfoot ("We are not alone"). Eventually, Sadie learns of the group's plans to protest a local fair, and she approaches the conclusion of her assignment with alarming amorality. Most of the narrative is dedicated to the activists' philosophizing and Sadie's gimlet-eyed observations, which Kushner magically weaves together ("People tell themselves, strenuously, that they believe in this or that political position," Sadie muses. "But the deeper motivation for their rhetoric... is to shore up their own identity"). Readers will be captivated.