Sadie Smith is deep undercover. She barely knows who she is anymore. She’s a bit like Bruno Lacombe, the enigmatic and secretive inspirational leader of an anti-capitalist movement, who has found himself in the deep dark of caves he believes were once frequented by Neanderthals. Sadie has unobserved access to his emails. She submerges herself in his meandering thoughts on life, work, and meaning. But is he really leading the Moulinardians or is he merely an obsolete jester on the sidelines? Sadie doesn’t know. Yet. Just as she doesn’t know precisely whom she is working for. She has a primary objective, to implicate the group in an unlawful action that will get them arrested. But there may be secondary or tertiary objectives that arise. If she chooses. If choice is a factor. If it isn’t all just written in the stars.

Rachel Kushner creates a remarkable tenuous narrative voice in “Sadie,” whomever she might be. Her journey becomes our journey as together we attempt to fathom what is really at stake. And her escape, if it occurs, will be the same one we take to the non-existent Priest Valley, California: population 0.

Certainly recommended. ( )

A fascinating novel about a lady who is an agent who works on different undercover projects throughout the world, In Creation Lake she is in France and tasked with helping man anti government group plotting to kill a government minister who comes to the area to attend an agricultural fair. We meet many interesting characters along the way in the French underground. The leader/mentor here is man named Bruno who has a fascinating outlook on Neanderthals and the world we live in, Great author, Great book. ( )

"Sadie" (not her real name) worked undercover for the government, infiltrating groups to see whether they are planning any terrorist acts, and sometimes encouraging them to do so. When a job goes badly, she works as a private contractor, doing the bidding of corporations or unknown groups. In Creation Lake, she works her way into a secretive cult/environmental group living in an obscure corner of France. To do so, she moves to the area and insinuates her way into the group and as she does so, she is taken with the writings of a man corresponding with the group, with ideas about Neanderthal society. The goals of the people who hired her have nothing to do with finding out the truth, and more to do about protecting powerful corporate interests and Sadie will have to decide what she wants.

Creation Lake is superficially an undercover thriller where the protagonist is possibly the bad guy, possibly just interested in collecting her fee, and the novel is told entirely from her point of view. Rachel Kushner isn't writing genre fiction, though, so while the scaffolding is there, you won't find much in the way of adventurous chases or even a propulsive plot, as Kushner casts her eye on how societies and groups structure themselves and what can cause them to change. I'm still figuring out what I think about this books, which contains some interesting ideas but also seemed to get so dragged down in ideas and the narrator's cynical ennui that it forgot that a book with a set up like this should also be full of tension and forward momentum. ( )

Modern noir, femme fatale as main character spy. A private instigator infiltrates a French Eco group, and attempts to goad them to action.

Various subplots, nothing is certain until the final pages. I enjoyed it. ( )

Not my usual fare but enjoyed in its own way. But I don’t really think I liked it because the narrator was basically a sociopath who had no morals and even in the end when she retreated to into her own solitude. She took no accountability for her impact on the lives of other people. ( )