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. ( )

It’s a rare but painful reading experience when I call it quits halfway through a book (the threshold a must reach in order to assign the work a rating).But I simply couldn’t make it past the 60% mark with “Creation Lake.“ I had near-zero interest in the characters or the plot. What’s more, I found the constant, heavy-handed pontificating on a smorgasbord of issues to be annoying. My two-star rating recognizes the fact that Kushner spotlighted important issues that include environmental woes and extremism. I reluctantly assigned two stars, given the fact that Kushner devised a somewhat inventive plot. But this “espionage thriller” was a true slog for me. ( )

Not quite fair to add this because I just couldn't get into it, despite all the nominations and raving reviews. ( )

Some time ago I listened to a story on "This American Life" about the FBI setting up undercover operations that essentially entrapped individuals that were really nothing more than angry side-standers. Putting options in front of them, like stinger missiles, and guiding them into actions that led to arrest on terrorism charges. In each story the commonality was that nothing would have happened if the FBI had not driven the entire process, all in the name of their "war on terror". This novel is built around exactly such a story, and it is centred on the undercover operative guiding the process. It is told by our operative in the first person, and we follow her actions and thought, which frequently include " ..., I didn't say" as she provokes then lets events roll downhill. On occassion after a few drinks she realises she in fact did allow her thoughts to slip out, but in general she is strictly controlled and analytical. Sadie is strongly opinionated, especially regarding all elements of her personality and why they are the best, and on her fake (but expensive fake) breasts- a metaphor for her entire synthetic character? ( )

I really liked this book by Rachel Kushner. Sadie Smith, an alias, is employed as a secret agent. After being fired by the US government, she is hired by private firms. The book is woven together by emails explaining this history of man by a former activist to members of a commune who are current activists. Sadie is hired to take the current activists down. Wonderful writing, interesting plot. ( )

“Sadie Smith” is an American woman in her early 30s. She joins a rural commune of French subversives and becomes intimate with them. It turns out she is a secret agent, (her superiors are never revealed) and is assigned to monitoring this group’s activities. Her aloof, ruthless personality fits her role perfectly. Kushner is such a sneaky and complex writer. I am sure there is even more going on, under the surface here, but I still ended up being quite intrigued by this story. This one is definitely not for everyone, but it worked for me. It is on the Booker Shortlist. ( )

Plumbing the depths inside yourself is not easy work. It is difficult work. But I am convinced…that the way to break free of what we are is to find out who we might have been, and to try to restore some kernel of our lost essence. from Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

I want to read it all over again! I was concentrating on the wrong things! I should know better. When an author gives a lot of space to something, it is because it is important. And in Creation Lake, a lot of space is given to the email messages from a character we never met, but who alters the arc of the narrator’s life.

“Sadie” is an alias adopted by a spy for hire. She has finagled her way into the life of a man, becoming his lover, to gain access to his old friend Pascal. Her job is to infiltrate Pascal’s group of environmental activists and prod them to violence.

Pascal’s mentor is Bruno Lacombe, whose retreated from the modern world into a cave. Sadie reads Bruno’s emails to Pascal on the special attributes he imagines belonged to the Neanderthals, which he believes can teach us how to live in this present world.

Sadie’s jobs involve constant travel, new identities, seduction, ruthlessness, and a will to survive. She understands that behind the facade of politics and beliefs, that “Life goes on a while” and “Then it ends.”

While we concentrate on Sadie’s task, beguiling people into trusting her, her manipulation of them, her alertness and self protection, Bruno’s words are working their way into changing her.

This mesmerizing book combines dark humor and deep insight with a surprising end and important message.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book ( )

Fine, readable, but not as insightful as some of the author's previous work.

I bought this as part of a post-payday haul at Daunt Books, without having heard much about it before, being beguiled by the synopsis on the cover. I subsequently learned that it had been shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, along with James by Percival Everett, which I also bought as part of the same haul.

In recent year’s, inclusion on that list has not necessarily been an inducement for me to buy the book. I feel that the panel; often seem more concerned with strewing clickbait to reap media attention, rather than rewarding literary merit. I was, however, very impressed with this book, so what do I know.

Although the panel on the flap of the dust jacket was sufficiently alluring to prompt my purchase, it is actually very difficult to offer a concise summary of the book. Basically, Sadie Smith is working undercover, having been contracted by a large, possibly multinational corporation, to infiltrate a commune that may be responsible for eco-warrior disturbances in the south of France. The commune’s leader is a charismatic figure who is in turn a follower of Bruno Lacombe, a recluse who, after personal tragedy in the past, has for the last few years lived in a deep network of caves, returning above ground occasionally to email his acolytes.

This may all seem distinctly implausible and unsatisfactory. There is, however, so much more going on, and Sadie is a powerfully drawn character. At the simplest level, she is ruthless in her approach, readily capable of fooling those whom she utilises to get where she needs to go, showing an almost catlike solipsism in the furtherment of her wishes. She is not entirely free of emotion, and appreciates much of what is going on around her, and is not unsympathetic to the aims of the organisation that she infiltrates. She does not, however, allow that to get in the way of her mission.

But the novel offers so much more, with fascinating insights into the political and philosophical roots of environmental campaigns, and a clear exposition of the lives and culture of our Neanderthal forebears, who had initially colonised the network of caves.

Rachel Kushner pulls of an effective literary trick. While she covers a huge amount of territory, offering insights into the history, and indeed prehistory, of the area, and exegesis of various political theories, the story moves along briskly, and certainly held my attention closely.

If the Booker Prize is genuinely awarded on merit (which I have occasionally questioned in the past when it seemed to model itself on FIFA’s blend of opaqueness and perfidy), it will take something rather special to beat Creation Lake. ( )

A rich romp that's part spy novel, part treatise on human evolution, part dark workplace comedy, part takedown of police tactics. My favourite thing Kushner's done yet. ( )

I'm confused why this is so popular. I found it boring and clunky to read. I would have been more open to philosophical insights and meaningful points from an author that spent less time describing boobs as large, perky, or 'sadly' saggy. (or was that point satire of some kind?) ( )

You say you want a revolution
Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins

Any book that starts off with a Beat generation veteran sending out email blasts from his cave dwelling in France in order to educate his followers about cigarette-smoking Neanderthals, just has to grab one’s attention.

It also should let the reader know that what follows is going to be fiction rather than fact.

With her sharp dead-pan wit and her incredible powers of observation Kushner has managed to craft an intelligent novel where her imagination examines human behavior, especially its fallibilities.

The heroine is a sexy young American who goes by the name of Sadie Smith. Sadie is a spy who will work for anyone. She is not only intelligent but she’s sexy, a ruthless seductress capable of pulling off both espionage and counter-espionage with ease. Or so she tells us.

The story uses a loose plot of Sadie’s assignments in order to comment on modern society and its critics. Her projects are a: to have a sub-minister of the French government assassinated, and b: to infiltrate a commune of eco-warrior wannabes. She manages to combine these two projects so that both aims are achieved simultaneously.

The commune - Moulin is set somewhere in southern France. Its people are adherents of the pseudo-philosophies of the old Beat Bruno - the one who sends out emails about Neanderthals - and a couple of his cronies. Their aim is to destroy “the system”, and they go about this by persuading young eco-protesters to form a commune to implement their ideas, which of course, as is the practice of so many revolutions, recreates the very things that they are destroying.

The Les Moulinards turn out to be a vacant lot, only too wiling to believe that the Neanderthals were a superior type of human, prone to depression and easily addicted. They had big noses and brains and were tall. Bruno liked to refer to them as The Talls. The members of the commune believe their leaders, partly because they were morally hampered by their parents who grew up in the culturally-dead eighties. Or are they are those parents? In the commune of the Moulinards anything is posible.

The idea of the leaders of the commune is that by looking to the distant past, modern humans could live in harmony blah blah. Sadie takes all this nonsense in her stride, and as the novel progreses she plans her two projects - the assassination and the infiltration of the Moulinages, on the fly in situ. She improvises, has sex, drinks fine and not so fine wine, all the while observing wryly the actions of those who will believe.

I enjoyed Creation Lake. It’s sharp, witty and does not lecture. ( )

I think this book is a bit of a marmite book - you either like it or loathe it. When people hear spy novel they think of something completely different and may feel they have been sold a dud with this one. If you take it that it isn't a spy novel it's just that the main character is spying on an eco group for an unknown person or group, that would be more accurate. It weaves together human history with French activism and the idea that returning to primitivism is the way forward.

The book opens with an email from Bruno, who we never meet, to Pascal, the leader of a community of Moulinards living as a group. Their discussion about the basis of Neanderthal man and what they were capable of based on their physical features is a key element of the book but unbeknownst to the two, Sadie Smith, an undercover agent working privately, is also reading the emails. There are plenty of clues that she is an unreliable narrator; her drinking and creation of a place that she comes from, Priest Valley, all suggest that. As she becomes more and more involved with the group, her thinking starts to change. What I found most depressing about this community was the poverty, dirt and roles that men and women fell into and the uncared for children. It is almost abuse.

The Moulinards are set up to protest about megabasins at a local fair where a politician is due to turn up. Megabasins are controversial storages of water and it stands to reason that there must be some impact on the local water and water table. In France, the setting for the book, they are very controversial and protests usually involve armed police and arrests. It is Sophie's role to manipulate the situation so that this happens and even see the death of the politician.

There are so many links to the present in this book not least the use of agents in relationships with people they are spying on. There have been terrible cases in the UK where children have been fathered by men who were undercover and who just disappeared, and this book did remind me of this. I can see why a spy novel is the basis of the book. Sadie stands above the rest, viewing them, reporting on them and generally being seen as 'above' the situation. A spy can do this: be involved and stand apart, show their agreement to ways of thinking and privately disagree. You get the best of both worlds as a narrator.

I didn't love the book, though, although I found it quite readable. I can see that it is the ideas in the book that would make it appealing to book prize judges. At the start of the book we see Sadie reading emails and a lead in to the fact that tomorrow is an important date. The book then goes into the history of the thinking and where Sadie is going to base herself and then suddenly jumps to the important tomorrow. It feels very clumsy and is the only place in the book that this happens. I also didn't really understand all the references to breasts and the role they had. They were 'D cups jellying from her dress', artificial and 'stationary on her chest' and Sadie's own implants 'barely contained in the white triangles of her bikini'. Is this related to Neaderthal man or something else? It passed me by!

There is a movement at present which looks back to indigenous ways of doing things and suggests that the future can be found therein. Permaculture is definitely a way of gardening that does this so this is a book that is right on trend. But it isn't a spy novel! ( )

Reason Read: The Booker Longlist and the short list. It was one that was available. I have read three books by Rachel Kushner; The Mars Room; The Flamethrowers. I gave 5 stars to The Mars Room and 3 stars to The Flamethrowers. This book reminded me more along the lines of The Flamethrowers. He story telling doesn't very much. I do not like her characters, they are basically unlikeable and this one is the most unlikeable. The genre is considered mystery, thriller but it is a poor example of thriller. There was only one time where I thought "oh no" but then the narrator walked away. I might have missed something but it seems like she works for unknown people and doesn't even know who she works for. She is willing to ruin people and cause harm, ruin peoples property. I just could not find anything to like about this character. Did she grow. Well maybe. She quit. So what do you get in this book; relationships between individuals and ideologies, power of language to inform, inspire, challenge as well as its weakness in terms of reductiveness, ambiguity, communication. Nature of vulnerability, nature of prehistory, nature of human species.
Also enviromental activism, nihilism, and capitalism.
Brief description; a secret agent, 34 y/o American woman of ruthless tactics, opinions, clean beauty sent to do dirty work in France.
I listened to the book, read by the author, she does a reasonable job. The male voices didn't do well coming across female. ( )

Kept thinking I’d read this story before, not very original, most of it didn’t seem relevant to the story, overhyped ( )

I’ve enjoyed the previous Kushner books I’ve read but I’m sad to say that I didn't like this one all that much. It’s a bit…undercooked and doesn’t come together in a very satisfying way.

200 pages shorter might have made this a much sharper book. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s on the lists for Booker and the National Book Awards. There’s better stuff out there and I’m saying this as a Kushner fan. Perhaps I will reread it at some point and form a different perspective, but for now, I have come away disappointed. I think I came across a review or something recently that compared this book and it's themes with Eleanor Catton's "Birnam Wood". Now THAT was a good read. ( )

59. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
OPD: 2024
format: 404-page hardcover
acquired: September 3 read: Sep 4-10 time reading: 11:55, 1.8 mpp
rating: 3½
genre/style: contemporary fiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: contemporary France Massif Central
about the author: An American author born in Eugene, OR (1968), who later grew up in San Francisco. She is the daughter of two scientists she has called “deeply unconventional people from the beatnik generation”

The book that isn't a thriller. But what is it? The opening is Sadie, her fake name, reading and presenting the emails a French anti-modernist radical, Bruno, who lives in a cave. He is writing about how Neanderthals were depressed and addicted to smoking tobacco - the first thing impossible to know, and the second impossible in any way. (Although studies not mentioned in the book show Neanderthals smoked various actually available plants). Sadie is working for a dark interest that is looking to undermine radical resistance to large agri-industrial, environmentally destructive effort to pool up ground water. She's spy, with a hidden past, weapons, technology, and fiancé she got engaged to, acting in her false identity, just to infiltrate a radical commune. She has a lot of sex for her job. Ok, was that all clear?

What's was interesting to me in this book was Sadie's backhanded practicality, and her sensitivity to fine details. She drives through France stopping at various awful quick-stop equivalents to try regional wines at plastic counters with disgusting packaged food. She has a tolerance and sensitivity of sorts. Bruno is also interesting, although never particularly deep or shocking. Sadie takes to his emails much more so than I did.

What was not interesting to me was about everything else. A lot of text going nowhere. A lot of descriptions of a commune, and its politics, that I didn't find very interesting. A discussion of pre-teen macho boys impregnating women. And an ending that seems to do nothing for the whole experience.

I liked the ambitious intent here, but for me this is another so-so Booker longlist book. It's been the norm.

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/362165#8623123 ( )

French social protest with ancient echos. A young double agent it’s tasked with infiltrating a social protest group. S series of emails reflect on a very early time in history and on the Neanderthals as well. A French officials life odd threatened. ( )

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

I read this in one sitting, not because it was 'a propulsive page-turner' (it is not), but rather because I was on a plane. It was an odd book - lots of philosophical musings and information about Neanderthals and society, interspersed with sections about 'Sadie' infiltrating an activist commune in rural France. Sadie was an interesting narrator and the writing was very good, but I'm not entirely sure what I think this was really 'about', what the point of it was... ( )