2024 Booker Prize (shortlist)
2024 National Book Award for Fiction (longlist)
**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 Carré' 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 NEW YORK TIMES, THE ATLANTIC, THE TIMES,VULTURE, THE ECONOMIST, AND OTHERS*
Genre: Literary Fiction
**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 Carré' 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 NEW YORK TIMES, THE ATLANTIC, THE TIMES,VULTURE, THE ECONOMIST, AND OTHERS*
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"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." - Hernán Diaz
"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." - Bret Easton Ellis
"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." - Louise Erdrich
"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." - Mick Herron
"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." - Bret Easton Ellis
"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." - Louise Erdrich
"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." - Mick Herron
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Used availability for Rachel Kushner's Creation Lake