From Rachel Kushner Booker Prize finalist and two-time National Book Award finalist comes a
new novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective
in France 'Reinvents the spy novel in one cool erudite gesture' HERNAN DIAZ 'Compulsively
readable... Kill Bill written by John le Carré' OBSERVER Sadie Smith - a thirty-four-year-old
American undercover agent of ruthless tactics bold opinions and clean beauty - is 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 a mysterious elder Bruno Lacombe
who has rejected civilisation tout court. Sadie casts her cynical eye over this region of
ancient farms and sleepy villages and at first finds Bruno's idealism laughable - he lives in
a Neanderthal cave and believes the path to enlightenment is a return to primitivism. But 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.
Beneath this parodic spy novel about a woman caught in the crossfire between the past and the
future lies a profound treatise on human history. Creation Lake is Rachel Kushner's finest
achievement yet - a work of high art high comedy and irresistible pleasure.
