Summary and Reviews of Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

Media Reviews

Bloomberg One of the most interesting and adept voices in contemporary fiction… Kushner's writing is clean, tight and often very funny as she jumps between past and present but never loosens her iron grip on the reader's attention.

Boston Globe Kushner's outrageous talent blazes hot throughout the book …Kushner has tapped into something primal, pure, and unforgettable.

Lit Hub Rachel Kushner wrote a secret agent book, and set it in France. What more must we know to anticipate it? Nothing, because no doubt, like nearly everything she writes, it will be an intellectual masterpiece while also reinventing a genre while also being wildly entertaining. That's kind of her thing.

Los Angeles Times Using the framework of an espionage novel, Kushner creates a spellbinding story of intrigue and subterfuge that examines the limits of control and moral influence.

New York Review of Books A dazzling work of fiction: brisk, stylish, funny, moving, and, unexpectedly, piercingly moral…At once terse and vivid, economical and expansive…true, funny, sad, shrewd, and beautifully controlled through each unyielding sentence.

The Nation Extraordinary... full of tension and clarity... riveting... incredibly fun.

Washington Post 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 spy's perspective with such eerie finesse that you feel how much fun she's having... the real covert operative here is Kushner, who's never felt more cunning than in this novel about the clashing ideological claims that have left us bereft at the end of time. Bore through this noir posing and wry satire of radical politics, and you feel something vital and profound prowling around in the darkness beneath.

New York Magazine Kushner is as intimidatingly intelligent as this twisty novel's main character.

The New Republic As in a Graham Greene or John le Carre novel, in Creation Lake the point of spying is not just to find out what is happening but how to pick one's way through a world of ideas... so fun...

The Guardian An immersive novel about an agent provocateur embedded within a group of environmental activists in south-western France, and slowly becoming mesmerized by the group elder's theories about Neanderthals. It's seductive, entrancing, and quite off the wall.

The Spectator (UK) Ambitious, intelligent and gripping...Creation Lake is one of the best books of the year so far.

Booklist (starred review) Surprising and delectable... This ecstatic vision of the collective human experience shimmers in stark opposition to the corporate plan to extract and lock up the valley's groundwater. A brain-spinning tale and searing look at our perilous estrangement from nature.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Sadie is similar to Kushner's earlier fictional protagonists—astringent, thrill-seeking, serious, worldly—but here the author has tapped into a more melancholy, contemplative mode that weaves neatly around a spy story… Kushner has captured the internal crisis of ideology that spy yarns often ignore, while creating an engaging tale in its own right. A deft, brainy take on the espionage novel.

Publishers Weekly (starred review) An undercover agent embeds with radical French environmentalists in this scintillating story of activism and espionage from Kushner...Most of the narrative is dedicated to the activists' philosophizing and Sadie's gimlet-eyed observations, which Kushner magically weaves together...Readers will be captivated.

 Bret Easton Ellis I was completely immersed and mesmerized. Creation Lake is a highly plotted fast-paced noir and yet full of ideas and depth. Rachel Kushner is the most exciting writer of her generation.

 Hernan Diaz, author of Trust Creation Lake reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture. Only Rachel Kushner could weave environmental activism, paranoia, and nihilism into a gripping philosophical thriller. Enthralling and sleekly devious, this book is also a lyrical reflection on both the origin and the fate of our species. A novel this brilliant and profound shouldn't be this much fun.

 Louise Erdrich 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.

Reader Reviews

Books with similar themes

• Literary Fiction
  
• France
  
• Contemporary
  
• Philosophical
  
• Nature & Environment