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Creation Lake

A Novel

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Creation Lake

Written by: Rachel Kushner
Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
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About this listen

2024 AUDIOFILE MAGAZINE EARPHONES AWARD WINNER!

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE*
*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD*
*AN INSTANT
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*

From Booker Prize finalist and two-time National Book Award finalist Rachel Kushner, a “vital” (
The Washington Post) and “wickedly entertaining” (The Guardian) novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France—a propulsive listen filled with dark humor.

A thirty-four-year-old American woman—a secret agent—is sent to do dirty work in France. “Sadie Smith” is how the narrator introduces herself to her lover, to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to the reader.

Sadie has met her love, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian, by “cold bump”—making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone Sadie targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her “contacts”—shadowy figures in business and government—instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more.

In this region of centuries-old farms and ancient caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who communicates only by email. Bruno believes that the path to emancipation from what ails modern life is not revolt, but a return to the ancient past.

Just as Sadie 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.

Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner’s rendition of “noir” is taut and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner’s finest achievement yet as a novelist, a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure.

©2024 Rachel Kushner (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio
Espionage Literary Fiction Noir Psychological France Witty
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What the critics say

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by LitHub, The Millions, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, The Guardian, and Publishers Weekly

What listeners say about Creation Lake

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Suspenseful and Satiric

About an audacious female spy hired by government and business interests who want to cripple environmental and human rights activists. Or is she an unreliable narrator and actually inept? Builds to an unexpected ending you could debate for days after reading.

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Monotone deliver makes it impossible to get through

The reviews of this book are strong and the synopsis was intriguing but I cannot get through it. I made it to chapter two and realized I have no idea what I listened to so started over. I am ten minutes in and again zoning out. There is no emotion or emphasis- monotone throughout. I can barely tell if she is trying to be sarcastic, funny, factual etc. Does the delivery get better as it goes on? Should I stick it through to the end?

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