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Creation Lake

The addictive New York Times bestseller from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author

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Creation Lake

By: Rachel Kushner
Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
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Brought to you by Penguin.

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024**

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

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

©2024 Rachel Kushner (P)2024 Penguin Audio

 Espionage Genre Fiction International Mystery & Crime Literary Fiction Mystery Spies & Politics Thriller & Suspense Women's Fiction Witty
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Critic 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)
Rachel Kushner may have written the novel of the year... A remarkably original book (Rachel Connolly)
Kushner is one of America's greatest living authors
A novel of ideas about nothing less than civilisation itself, delivered in the guise of a thriller – the result is profound and wickedly entertaining
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)
Hugely enjoyable… Creation Lake is a smart, funny novel that dares to contemplate the void of uncertainty where we all stand
A philosophical novel of ideas wrapped up in a spy caper… Irresistible
A dazzling, genre-defying novel, satirical yet profound
Wild and brilliantly plotted… Think Kill Bill written by John le Carré: smart, funny and compulsively readable
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
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An interesting tale, full of oblique information and wisdom, but let down by a truly awful narrator. The flat, harsh monotone of her voice was like a strand of barbed wire, her French pronunciation was neither accurate nor consistent and her complete lack of either inflection or apparent familiarity with each sentence read made listening a real trial. Moral of the story: avoid books read by their author unless that author is a professional actor, presenter or comedian.

Good tale; horrible narration

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Vocabulary great but the boring and chaotic storyline was confusing and made the story even more boring. She obviously had run out of ideas during the latter part of the book and padded it out. The ending was poor. The characters were impossible to invest in and sympathise with or even dislike. The whole thing was extremely bland for me.

That it has been shortlisted for a prestigious award.

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There were some sections I loved - but they were few and far between. I found the main character to be unsympathetic, the plot contrived and the passages on anthropology overwritten. The audiobook is read competently by the author but for me, it felt very flat.

This is as much a treatise on anthropology as as a strange spy story.

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Didn’t really know what was going on and don’t really care. Nothing seems to happen not sure the author should have read it herself.

Jeff didn’t care enough to finish it

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The author on this occasion would in my opinion have been better to delegate narration to an actor. I felt there was a bewildering cast of characters.

Original idea

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