Oregon-born author Rachel Kushner has written some of the most widely-loved novels of the twenty-first century. Creation Lake, which was published in 2024 and earned rave critical reviews, is set to be as wildly successful as her previous work. The novel follows a thirty-four year old woman who is sent from America to Paris to infiltrate and surveil an anarchist collective. At first, she is instructed to do simple things by her handlers, like sow division among members of the collective. However, over time, they ask her to do more complex things (including things that stretch the limits of her mission and moral sensibilities). Through her journey, she meets a number of interesting characters, including a man named Bruno Lacombe, who attempts to sway the young woman, who calls herself "Sadie," "into his way of thinking. These competing ideals, as well as Sadie's growing moral uncertainty surrounding the operation she is involved in, causes Sadie to question the nature of the world as she came to understand it.
As with Kushner's other works, Creation Lake garnered widespread acclaim and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In his positive review of the novel, M John Harrison praised Kushner's characterization of Sadie and called her a "triumph of character– not quite fully self-deceived, not even entirely corrupted by the barely controlled confusions, emotional complications and near-disasters of the deep-cover agent’s life. She’s a satire, but she’s also being straight with us."
