Creation Lake: From the Booker Prize-shortlisted author

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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 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 'The most exciting writer of her generation' BRET EASTON ELLIS 'Reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture' HERNAN DIAZ 'Compulsively readable... Kill Bill written by John le Carre' OBSERVER Sadie Smith - a thirty-four-year-old American undercover agent of ruthless tactics and bold opinions - 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 an enigmatic elder, Bruno Lacombe, who has rejected civilisation, lives in a Neanderthal cave, and believes the path to enlightenment is a return to primitivism. Sadie casts her cynical eye over this region of ancient farms and sleepy villages, and finds Bruno's idealism laughable, but just as she 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 taut, dazzling story 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 novel yet - a work of high art, high comedy and irresistible pleasure.

Reviews

One of the best books of the year... ambitious, intelligent and gripping... an expertly slick thriller... Kushner pulls off a remarkable feat -- Philip Womack * Spectator *
Kushner[is] one of the centurys great American novelists Her hugely enjoyable new novelalready longlisted for this years Booker, ought to put her firmly on the map amazingly tense: wall-to-wall entertainment, and a real treat -- Anthony Cummins * Observer *Book of the Week* *
Rachel Kushner may have written the novel of the year... A remarkably original book -- Rachel Connolly * The Telegraph *
Kushner is one of America's greatest living authors * Daily Telegraph *
Wild and brilliantly plotted Think Kill Bill written by John le Carr: smart, funny and compulsively readable * Observer *
A novel of ideas about nothing less than civilisation itself, delivered in the guise of a thriller the result is profound and wickedly entertaining. -- Lisa Allardice * Guardian *
At last I get to say how deeply, madly, irrecoverably I loved Creation Lake...it was all stylish and cool, and then somehow the book struck a blow to my heart, which surprised me a lot, because I did not suspect what Rachel Kushner was really up to all along. -- Louise Erdrich * Kirkus *
Questions of control and coercion, reality and idealism, are layered on top of Kushners enveloping noir. Sadie has a brash confidence and a manner of moving through the world that is aloof in the extremedisbanding any allegiances or affections before they can create the faintest of tethers. But Kushners plotat once arid and affectingasks just how much any human can insulate themselves * Vogue *
Kushners writing is clean, tight and often very funny as she jumps between past and present but never loosens her iron grip on the readers attention * Bloomberg *
Kushner has proved to be one of Americas most intellectually curious novelists....Creation Lake bears all the hallmarks of her inquisitive mind and creative daring... a spy thriller laced with a killer dose of deadpan wit...Kushner inhabits the spys perspective with such eerie finesse that you feel how much fun shes having...the real covert operative here is Kushner, whos never felt more cunning than in this novel...vital and profound * The Washington Post *

Author Bio

Rachel Kushner is the author of The Hard Crowd, her acclaimed essay collection, and the internationally bestselling novels The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers, and Telex from Cuba, as well as a book of short stories, The Strange Case of Rachel K. She has won the Prix Medicis and been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Folio Prize, and was twice a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and the recipient of the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her books are translated into twenty-seven languages.