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Creation Lake

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Creation Lake

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

Brought to you by Penguin.

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024**

Seductive and cunning American spy-for-hire Sadie Smith has been 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 an enigmatic elder, Bruno Lacombe, who has rejected civilisation, lives in a Neanderthal cave, and believes the path to enlightenment is a return to primitivism.

Sadie casts her cynical eye over this region of ancient farms and sleepy villages, and finds Bruno’s idealism laughable, but just as she 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 a taut, dazzling story of espionage and intrigue lies one of a woman caught in the crossfire between the past and the future, and a profound treatise on human history.

'The most exciting writer of her generation' BRET EASTON ELLIS

'Reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture' HERNAN DIAZ

'Compulsively readable... Kill Bill written by John le Carré' OBSERVER

©2024 Rachel Kushner (P)2024 Penguin Audio Espionage Genre Fiction International Mystery & Crime Literary Fiction Mystery Small Town & Rural Spies & Politics Thriller & Suspense Women's Fiction Witty
All stars
Most relevant
Good blend of fiction and fact. ( Presuming of course that it was indeed responsibly interpreted)

Originality

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Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner folds politics, history, gender, grief and prehistory into a singular, complex narrative that defies genre while being razor-sharp and cool. A novel of ideas disguised as a spy story, with a cold, brilliant core and a glimmer of warmth buried deep. Loved this.

Fantastic writing, strange happenings in France

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Excellent, unsettling, engaging. I loved this book and the reading was also very good. Great story

Character development

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I found this very difficult and wasn’t keen on the narrator/author. There’s no doubt the writing is brilliant but I don’t think it transfers well to audible. I will read the book some time. This could win the Booker 2024

Creative writing

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The narration is painfully insouciant, detracting from what seems to be a brilliant book. If it is re-recorded, I would definitely repurchase.

Needs to be re-recorded to do the work justice

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