Sadie Smith - a sardonic, strikingly sexy, 30-something American undercover agent of questionable morals - is sent by her mysterious but powerful employers to a remote corner of France. Her instructions are to infiltrate a commune of radical eco-activists led by the charismatic svengali Bruno Lacombe and coax them into violent action, provoking the French state to crush them and their dangerous ideas for good.
At first Sadie finds Bruno’s idealism laughable - he lives in a Neanderthal cave and believes the path to enlightenment is a return to primitivism. But over time she falls for his narrative about the futility of civilisation and his promise of a new dawn for humanity. His ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own devastating story, become impossible to turn away from.
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. Written in short, vaulting sections, Creation Lake is Rachel Kushner’s finest achievement yet as a novelist - a work of high art, high comedy, keen insights and irresistible pleasure.