Sep 28

Sep 28 Creation Lake

About the book

Author: Rachel Kushner
Publisher: Scribner

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

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Bookshop.org (print) | Libro.fm (audio)

My Review

Creation Lake was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award, so of course I had to read it. But this is a tricky review to write — it didn’t really grab me, but I’m having a hard time articulating why.

The book is definitely noir, and some have said it kind of feels like a thriller, although I’d disagree there. It’s about a woman who calls herself Sadie Smith. She’s a kind of undercover freelance secret agent on assignment to infiltrate a cult of radical farmers in the French countryside. Interspersed with the plot are emails she’s reading between the cult’s leader and an ideologist named Bruno who lives in a cave and waxes poetic about Neanderthals (literally). As the book goes on, Sadie finds herself more and more drawn into Bruno’s way of seeing the world.

I didn’t actively dislike the book, and I can even recognize its merits (for example, i how it explores themes of truth and reality and creating ones own narrative, and leverages an unlikeable woman main character in interesting ways). I actually liked the emails about Neanderthals best, lol. But I was very glad when I was finished reading it. It just didn’t do much for me.

That said, there were many people at book club who loved this one (and not just existing members of the Rachel Kushner fan club either)! If you’re curious about it, definitely give it a shot.