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!!

https://www.waterstones.com/account/reviews

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.

An intelligent and meandering novel following “Sadie” (an alias for PI and narrator of the book l) on a job in France working to infiltrate an extremist organisation for employers unknown. Interesting and very different to anything I’ve read before. I feel like I’ll take different things from this on a future reading but very engaging, albeit it requires concentration at times. Ambitious and deserving of the hype surrounding it!

This gripping narrative delves deep into themes of progress, activism, and the blurred lines between entrapment and genuine belief. Beyond its high-stakes tension, it offers a broader reflection on humanity—past, present, and future—exploring our evolving relationship with the environment, power structures, and ideological movements. With sharp prose and intricate plotting, Creation Lake is as much a thrilling undercover mission as it is a thought-provoking study of the human condition.

http://thesecretbookreview.co.uk

Having not read any Rachel Kushner, I requested this somewhat blindly, encouraged by a wave of Booker Prize prediction posts (which turned out to be very accurate, with the book being longlisted just one day after my request was approved!) and knowing little about what to expect. For a book billed as ‘Rachel Kushner’s rendition of noir’, I definitely did not anticipate the volume of neanderthal discussions.

This is a truly unique work, at once a spy novel and also something much deeper. Inventive, original and rightly being garnered with awards attention - this is a novel unlike anything you’ve read before.

Don’t expect an action-packed thriller, though - this is much more cerebral than I was expecting, but also a lot of fun. Sadie, our protagonist, is snarky and memorable, and wholly believable.

I’m not sure I was totally convinced by the ending, but overall had a really good time with this.

An interesting read. A philosophical spy thriller with a fascinating and original heroine and much musing on a variety of unrelated issues.

Original and challenging but worth the effort and concentration needed to finish it.