Creation Lake(Shortlisted For The Booker Prize 2024)

Description:

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024**

**INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**

'Imagine Slow Horses' Jackson Lamb in the body of Jodie Comer's character in Killing Eve' SUNDAY TIMES

'Compulsively readable... Kill Bill written by John le Carre' OBSERVER


Seductive and cunning American spy-for-hire Sadie Smith has been 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 a taut, dazzling story of espionage and intrigue lies one of a woman caught in the crossfire between the past and the future, and a profound treatise on human history.

'The most exciting writer of her generation' BRET EASTON ELLIS

'Reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture' HERNAN DIAZ
*A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES, NEW YORK TIMES, INDEPENDENT, DAILY TELEGRAPH, THE ATLANTIC, GUARDIAN, VULTURE, THE ECONOMIST*

Review: 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 century's great American novelists... Her hugely enjoyable new novel...already longlisted for this year's 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 Carre: 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 Kushner's enveloping noir. 'Sadie' has a brash confidence and a manner of moving through the world that is aloof in the extreme-disbanding any allegiances or affections before they can create the faintest of tethers. But Kushner's plot-at once arid and affecting-asks just how much any human can insulate themselves * Vogue *
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 * Bloomberg *
Kushner has proved to be one of America's 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 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...vital and profound * The Washington Post *
This capacious, brainy, [Booker] longlisted novel is her [Kushner's] most ambitious yet; it is also her most slyly entertaining... a marvellous creation * Daily Mail *
A sensationally enjoyable novel and has deservedly made the Booker prize longlist... [it is] gripping...with perfect dramatic timing * New Scientist *
A lively, timely, satisfyingly rough-grained novel of ideas...[with] an excitingly complex and fascinating narrator... Sadie is a triumph of character... the world pours in on her senses, and through hers into ours * Guardian *
Creation Lake, embeds big, timely ideas in a ploy that's propulsive and fun * Mail on Sunday *
An electrifying thriller and a profound novel of ideas * Guardian, *Autumn Picks of 2024* *
An ambitious story about nihilism, Trojan-horsed into a fun spy thriller * New Statesman *
Hugely enjoyable... Creation Lake is a smart, funny novel that dares to contemplate the void of uncertainty where we all stand * Sunday Times, *Book of the Week* *
Creation Lake is both smart and funny. It sparks with intellectual vim * Daily Telegraph *
A philosophical novel of ideas wrapped up in a spy caper... The prose is thrilling, and the audacious character of "Sadie Smith" - a kind of steely self-willed superwoman, whose veneer begins to crack as the novel goes on - irresistible * Guardian *
A dazzling, genre-defying novel, satirical yet profound... Sadie Smith remains an elusive and beguiling secret agent, worthy of a new adventure -- Genevieve Gaunt * Spectator *

Author Biography: 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.