BookLife Review by Carol O'Day: Creation Lake (Rachel Kushner, author)
Literary fiction, Booker Prize shortlist, spy, undercover agent, rural France, eco-terrorism, commune, radical thinkers, cave dwelling, pre-historic man, French politics.
Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake is a very unusual spy-style novel. Set in rural France, Creation Lake is the story of a female private spy tasked with infiltrating a French eco-terrorist commune, Le Moulin. The group opposes French policies that harm the environment and they are determined to undermine an initiative to pump groundwater into above ground cisterns for distribution among failing farmlands. On its face, the description promises a thriller of sorts–intrigue, subterfuge and gadgets. This is not that novel.
Kushner’s tale is told in the first person. The agent calls herself “Sadie Smith.” A former spy with an unnamed U.S. agency, “Sadie” was discharged when one of her cases went awry when the targets of her investigation were arrested and raised claims of entrapment. Sadie was then known as Amy and had enticed, if not entrapped, a young man to secure, by felonious means, funds for eco-terror activities. Amy-Sadie left the agency and sought jobs as a private agent. Her current day cover is that she is an expat from California living in Paris and working as a dog-walker. She undertakes a private assignment to infiltrate the commune in rural France.
Sadie orchestrates a meeting with Lucien, a young aristocrat and wannabe filmmaker who is the heir to a mansion in the target region. Lucien is also known to the leaders of the local eco-terrorist group. Lucien is enamored with Sadie and before long she manages to occupy his family estate while he is in Marseilles filming. Her cover is established. She finagles a way to ward off the nosy, jealous and aggrieved aunt and uncle who covet the mansion. She orchestrates a meeting with the group’s leader and offers her services as a translator to expand the group’s reach through broader distribution of the book the leader has authored. She is embedded. That is about all that aligns with a classic spy-undercover agent story.
Le Moulin were a mentorred by former leaders Bruno Lacombe and Jean Violane. Jean still resides in the area and frequently is consulted by the group’s current leader, Pascal. Bruno, however, has retreated and arguably, gone mad. Sadie surreptitiously accesses Lacombe’s communications with Pascal and Le Moulin. As he aged, Bruno rethought the strategy of eco-terrorism he formerly espoused. He now believes that capitalism cannot be overcome, that eco-terrorism is futile and he has even more radical ideas. He first retreated to a cabin in the woods and then to the caves in the hills in the area. His new philosophy is that man must retreat from the world and model the lives of the Neanderthals. His writings are diatribes about the misunderstood “Thals” as he calls them, the flaws of their predecessors, Homo Sapiens, and the vast inferiority of modern man to their predecessors. Despite the insanity oozing from his writings, Sadie is oddly fascinated by Bruno, eagerly awaits each of his email communications to Pascal, and when she is not with Le Moulin in her spy role, she attempts to locate Bruno’s cave.
The novel toggles back and forth a bit between chapters filled with Bruno’s rambling philosophical critique and Sadie’s attempts to document illegal activity of the members of the commune. The Bruno element is so esoteric, bizarre and other-worldly that it is hard to read it as much other than the ramblings of a quack. It is difficult to understand why the protagonist, Sadie, is so fixated on his thinking and writings, other than the fact that she sees herself as an outcast and a renegade and in some ways identifies with Bruno’s yearning to escape society. That said, it is a challenging premise for a reader and does little to foster identity between the reader and the protagonist. I kept trying to root for Sadie, but not only were her methods often questionable, but her goals were muddled, and often she seemed much more mercenary than missionary. The activities of Le Moulin certainly were not harmless, but nor were they the stuff of international intrigue or the stuff of top-level danger or threat. In fact, to some extent, Sadie inserts herself into the group and suggests activities that in turn devolve into criminal activity. A protest gone awry can result in injury. A gun passed to an unstable actor poses a foreseeable risk of injury.
Kushner’s novel is atypical, and in that sense fresh. There certainly are too few spy novels featuring female agents. Sadie-Amy, however, is only nominally heroic and is not particularly admirable. The scale and subject of her assignments is peripheral at best. The extensive writings of Bruno on the nature, research and habits of pre-historic man are quirky to say the least. If you are looking for a very off-beat European novel of mild intrigue and eccentricity, add this one to your list.
Support BookLife: Reviews for Readers and independent bookstores by purchasing Creation Lake using the link below:
