Didn’t love it - but wanted to given its status and the Man Booker shortlist position. The voice is okay but I didn’t fully get the story - and I found myself drifting and skimming. I didn’t want to give up on it, as the writing is good - I just didn’t really enjoy the story.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Creation Lake was my last book of the Booker Shortlist, and I went in relatively blind. I knew it was a thriller spy novel set in the South of France, so based on that, I thought it was going to be a hit for me.

The book centres around one Sadie Smith (not her real name), a 34 year old spy who has lost her job working for a federal agency and is now working freelance for unnamed capitalists. She needs to influtrate a rural French commune of ecowarrior subversives The Moulinards who are trying to stop corporate farming and manipulate them into doing what her paymasters want.

In order to do so, she hacks into the emails of their reclusive leader Bruno and pretty soon starts getting immersed into his anthropological tracts on Neanderthal men and gradually starts getting taken by them

Sadie is, without a doubt, one of the absolute worst characters you could possibly encounter in a book. She is so awful. As you find out why she lost her federal job, any vaguely redeeming traits are cast aside. I think the whole point of Sadie's cynicism is a form of dark humour from Kushner, but it didn't quite land like that with me.

Structurally the book was all over the place, maybe that was a deliberate ploy by Kushner to reflect Sadie's messy character but it didn't quite work for me, all it left me wanting was more of the smoking Neanderthals, words I never thought I'd write.

Following an undercover American spy sent to infiltrate a group of climate activists in the south of France, Kushner offers us the sneering gaze of a woman who has seen it all. Bouncing between elite beach clubs on the Cote d'Azur and the sleepy southern countryside, the people are presented as boring and unintelligent. Sadie toys with the people she encounters - and also spends a significant portion of time musing on breast augmentation surgery - as she vainly casts herself as the seductress in this story.

There is little sense of urgency or understanding as to why the narrator has been sent on such a seemingly pointless mission. The references to her bungled past work at the FBI are supposed, we presume, to stew together an increasingly sinister atmosphere as the reader may become suspicious of her employer's motives in sending her to join the radical eco-activists.

In an era where governments are dealing out all-too-severe punishments for climate activists and doing little to protect the environment or meet targets for reducing carbon emissions, the premise of Creation Lake feels timely and relevant. Throw in a setting that I personally adore and it should have suited my readerly taste down to a tee.

Unfortunately, the narrator's derisive tone and dismissal of European life, combined with the slow-moving pace, failed to hook me. There was little driving the plot or pace of the book and several scenes found me questioning their purpose. Despite the thematic potential, Kushner didn't deliver on the premise for me.

I was really unsure how I felt about this book, strange and slightly unsettling as it is in style if not in substance. The emails from the man obsessed with caves and the literal underground juxtaposed with the real life underground political group that our narrator is infiltrating, the ridiculousness of all the characters and the situations in which sexy Sadie gets herself, it was all fun but also confusing. I certainly enjoyed aspects of it, the way it skewers all it's characters and the satirical look at internet rabbit holes and political hypocrisy I enjoyed, but the two parts of the book did not seem to marry up very well, and the slapstick ending took the joke a little too far, not for good taste but for good humour.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Another Booker Prize read... while I liked this, I didn't connect with it on any kind of emotional level, though I'm not sure you're really meant to. Sadie is a cypher and deliberately moves through the world with as few connections as possible, though by the end you get a glimmer of hope that this might change. I did find the narrative interesting, and it certainly makes you think about how espionage works in the modern era.

My first Kushner, and keen to explore her back catalogue now! It’s fair to say, this is a pretty strange book, in a way I really enjoy.

Ostensibly a spy novel with agent provocateur honey-trap esque Sadie Smith (not her real name!) who is tasked with infiltrating and agitating an eco-commune. Sadie is an unreliable narrator, and as she reveals her thoughts about her work, memories of a past job that ended disastrously and details of how she’s conducting her current job gives the reader hints that Sadie perhaps isn’t that skilled at what she does.

Creation Lake is quite dense thematically, covering topics as diverse as 15th century French peasant rebellions, Neanderthal art, the sexualisation of children and astronomy- it’s not all easy reading and has long stretches of didactic email correspondence from a man who lives in a cave and doesn’t believe in cooking food.

I wondered if this would be quite like Birnam Wood, with a setting of eco-commune gone bad but it’s not. Creation Lake is much more concepts and vibes and Birnam Wood’s plot has a stronger denouement. I did like that the ending stayed true to the strange vibes of Sadie’s character and the rest of the book

This book seems to have divided people. Many of the Booker short list readers seem to have had this at the bottom of the short list and several would not have had it in their shortlist. I think it was worthy of the short list.

Kushner has taken a thriller and woven in thoughts on mankind.

“Sadie Smith” infiltrates a group of eco terrorists (or eco warriors depending upon your point of view). Some of Kushner’s observations of mankind were very amusing.

Difficult to write a review on this one.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I enjoyed the concept of this book and loved the characters. However it didn’t engage me much, and I felt it was a bit too slow paced for me. Love the settings of the book and good writing!!

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Thank you to the Publisher for an advance copy of this novel.

I have to admit I was dubious to read this after falling into the hole of Brandon Taylor's negative review for the LRB. I am so glad I took matters into my own hands and read this novel regardless.

Creation Lake is a blend of spy novel, satire and philosophical adventure. It follows Sadie Smith--tipsy, misogynistic, self employed spy--as she infiltrates an environmental commune in the hopes of catching them out in some environmental criticism. It is funny, melancholic and deeply exploratory--from everything to caves, sex and the night sky. What the novel does really well is keep its balance. It is arrogant but in all the right places, supplicating when it has to be and magical especially in the last moments.

Kushner writes character very well and whilst at the start I was worried that there were so many male characters with singular names, I did not get confused. I think some other readers did get confused with Sadie's sarcastic, misogynistic viewpoint but I think it is pretty clear that the author is writing from a point of satire and change.

Overall, I really loved this novel and can't wait to check out more of Kushner's work.

Creation Lake is Kushner’s second booker nominated novel, following 2018’s The Mars Room.

This one follows Sadie Smith, a spy, or rather ex-spy for hire, as she inserts herself into a commune of environmental activists in France. They follow the teachings of an intellectual, Bruno Lancome and much of the book explores these philosophies as Sadie monitors his email communications to the commune.

In the meantime, Sadie also attempts to ingratiate herself with the commune as a translator of their manifesto. As Sadie works through Lancome’s communications and plots to infiltrate the commune, we also see her unravel and the story of how she came to be where she is, on this job. Sadie is a self-assured young woman, with a self-proclaimed 'knockout figure' but as her story unfolds, to what extent this confidence is bravado or sheer self-delusion is to be debated.

It soon becomes clear that what she is embroiled in is political, and where she thought she was in control, she’s simply another pawn. The concept was so interesting and had a lot of mileage. The political thriller Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton last year was excellent, and while the premise of this felt in the same vein, it failed to be anywhere near as engaging or thrilling. Similarly, where The Mars Room excelled in building characters the reader could care deeply for, who faced horrific situations, Creation Lake feels like it has a level of cold detatchment - it’s tough to relate or feel for people who are so callously cruel. Kusher writes with a wit and sarcasm, which does occaisonally redeem the narrative.

However, Creation Lake ultimately feels as though it was written as an intellectual excercise on ideology - if this interests you then it will make for a more enjoyable read. There’s no doubt that Kushner is deeply intelligent, however as a vehicle for her ideas, this novel didn’t quite get there and could ultimately leave readers feeling lost.

An unusual and compelling story, this book is quite unlike anything else. Sadie is a freelance spy, working to agitate protest groups around the world, hired to create disruption in a quiet corner of France by unknown employers.

Sadie is a complex and unlikeable character but through her experiences and understanding you come to learn many things about the situation she is in and the way she operates. She is cold, cruel and exploitative in a pure way, getting what she wants and needs at others' expense, and that makes her fascinating to read.

She moves through her world and through her you encounter many different people and their motivations as they work against the French state's desire to install mega reservoirs, stirring up protests in order to catch protestors in the act, with no limits on collateral damage. Does she achieve her task and does she survive intact? The ending is very thought-provoking and wraps up a disturbing and moving tale.

Creation Lake is an intriguing and unique book. It follows spy 'Sadie' to a remote corner of France as she tries to infiltrate a commune of radical eco activists. I found this book a bit difficult to get into and found it required quite a bit of concentration and I had to go back on bits quite a lot which took some of the enjoyment out of it for me personally. It is very well written and clearly has had a huge amount of research put into it. I think I may not have been fully in the right mood for this book when I picked it up but it is definitely one I would be interested in revisiting again to fully appreciate it.

A spy story, one of espionage and deceit - not my usual bag of tricks, but this has made the Booker shortlist so I decided to give it a go.
I think that I am happy that I read it; four stars would indicate that certainly.

There are big ideas lurking in amongst the pages of closed off, cold and calculating Sadie Smith (not her real name). Primarily they come from the email meanderings of Bruno Lacombe, the local recluse and one time revolutionary, who is supposedly advising the local eco-commune, the Moulinards, who Sadie has been sent to France to infiltrate. If I am honest his thoughts and theories of Neanderthal man and his counterpart Homo Sapian took too many pages, but the underlying ideologies of origin and evolution were interesting to a point. Theories on the Polynesian sailors and their 'unreadable' maps and separately, the premise that we should not judge a society by what remains after hundreds of years, I found to be more pertinent and certainly held my attention.

Kushner uses our long term history in order to theorise a potential future, she examines leftist thinking, extrapolates it and explores the implications of the elimination of a capitalist society and moreover, what forces are at play to resist that destruction.

The meditation on that paid for resistance has much to offer on the fine line between entrapment and true conviction.

Our protagonist was unlikeable, purposefully so I am sure, but I need to care about my characters, and I cared nothing for Sadie. So while this ambitious book has stayed with me for longer than expected, no doubt at an intellectual level, it did not move me.

I really bounced off this and gave up after around 100 pages. It was well written but I just didn't find it engaging. That probably says more about me as the writer is clearly talented but I just couldn't get into it.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024
Nominated for the National Book Award 2024
Come for the story, stay for the messy female protagonist: Much like Ottessa Moshfegh, Kushner excels in writing complex women that are not crafted to be sympathetic or to function as identification figures. But where Moshfegh investigates extreme aesthetics of disgust and alienation, Kushner takes a more direct political approach. My favorite is still The Mars Room which deals with violence, classism and trauma and also has the most captivating plot, but while The Flamethrowers' slightly convoluted story line tended to aggravate me, I still loved the messy female artist who serves as the protagonist.

And now Kushner twists French noir, giving us a hard-drinking female spy as a narrator. Moving from Italian anarchists (The Flamethrowers) to French leftist thinkers around Guy Debord, Kushner's latest protagonist, 34-year-old American Sadie Smith (not her real name), aims to infiltrate the anarchist eco-commune "Le Moulin" around Bruno Lacombe which is located in the limestone regions of southern France. Lacombe rambles to his followers about the Neanderthals and spits conspiracy theories, the group is accused of sabotaging capitalist ventures they deem to harm the environment.

But this is not another book about climate change, the destruction of the environment, extremist bubbles, or the importance of framing narratives, no: It's strong when it illuminates the language PhD drop out and now spy-for-hire known as Sadie. She seems to like her job, she is unscrupulous and cold, she employs her beauty to get her job done, but her psychological turmoil prompted by a feeling of emptiness shines through the cracks of her narration. Her ruminations, often inspired by her astute observations, reveal a grim world-view that reflect a disillusionment with humans in general. To her, ideological belief systems are just another quirk.

What really bothered me though was the extensive reflection of Bruno's ideas: The essayistic endeavors that overwhelm the book show a lack of interest in plot, which is not a problem per se, but the theorizing just didn't captivate me enough. Extra points though for the connection to Houellebecq's Sérotonine, very smartly done. Overall, an interesting effort, that, for my taste, goes slightly overboard.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this novel. There are some fascinating ideas, (in Bruno’s emails),and some good, (but bleak), insights about Europe and the state of the world. Sadie, an intentionally unlikeable narrator, didn’t work for me as a character or as a cipher, or as a satirical device. The espionage narrative was a bit half-arsed, neither exciting, nor black comedy. I quite enjoyed the process of reading it but felt something was missing from the novel. One of those books that make me think I’m missing something brilliant (and perhaps I am).

Maybe I was too dumb for this book but I really didn’t like how it was written or the plot or really had any clue what was going on because of how things were being told. Are you supposed to be deducing things as you read along? It just felt so flat and confusing.

The premise of Creation Lake sounded intriguing. This was after all pitched as a spy-thriller and described as "Kill Bill written by John le Carré", It seemed to be right up my alley. Even more so after it's Booker Prize nomination. So, clearly expectations were high, maybe too high.

Creation Lake felt more like a novel populated by ideas than action and subsequently I felt let down. If I didn't have the expectation of it being an exciting spy novel full of intrigue and everything that goes with it, i.e. a fast pace, strong plot and interesting twists, it might have been a different experience. But in the end it was the uneventful telling of a lackluster spy with little motivation for her mission. Even the ending is uneventful and leaves the reader even more disgruntled.

Kushner undoubtedly incorporated interesting ideas and food for thought, but packaging it as a spy thriller and comparing it to Killing Eve is a stretch.

I’d been wondering about whether to read this for a while and bumped it up my list as a result of the Booker shortlist. Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into it and struggled to get a sense of what was going on. I will say that I was quite tired during the week that I read it and the kindle format probably didn’t help, but I just couldn’t find a reason to care enough to persevere. I hope it finds it’s readers through as I expect some people will enjoy it and it was well written.

Lots of research has been done for this book and I don’t doubt it’s accuracy. For me, however, it turned the narrative into a more scientific work than I was comfortable with. For those who like more technically detailed books this is for you.