A literary genre has its own outline: a distinct shape and a recognizable form. Writers of any kind of genre fiction, be it whodunit, fantasy, or sci-fi, create their own worlds while at the same time cleaving to a specific formula and abiding by certain rules. Break the rules and you get a pale imitation. Merge genres and you get either a deliberate parody like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or, in worst-case scenarios, a messed-up mashup, a book that wants the best of both worlds but ends up being neither one thing nor the other.
Rachel Kushner has attempted a daring, possibly foolhardy, fusion with her latest book, which is her take on the spy novel. Creation Lake is a blend of genre fiction and literary fiction. It could be classed as a “philosophical thriller” — that type of book that aims high and means well but all too often leaves readers cold. It could have seriously backfired. But, for the most part, Kushner’s fourth novel succeeds as a fiercely intelligent and richly entertaining story of a woman learning more about who she is and where she came from while deep undercover.
That woman, the book’s narrator, is a 34-year-old American who goes by the name of Sadie Smith. Her top-secret line of work demands that she adopt a new identity. She used to work on home turf for the FBI, but her time with them came to an ignominious end after her efforts to entrap an animal rights activist led to a failed conviction. “The agency who had hired me more or less touched a button: their tinted windows went up, and that was it.”
Now it is 2013, and Sadie is plying her trade as a freelance spy in Europe for undisclosed private-sector “contacts.” Her latest assignment is to infiltrate Le Moulin, a subversive farming cooperative in Guyenne, southwest France. Six months ago, expensive excavating equipment was destroyed at a site in the region where an industrial reservoir was being built. The Moulinards were suspected of sabotage, but no proof came to light. Sadie must monitor the group and find evidence that they were responsible — or find a way to implicate them so that the police can shut them down and lock them up.
Sadie begins her mission in Paris by engineering an introduction then faking a romance with filmmaker Lucien Dubois. Blissfully unaware of who his lover really is, Lucien agrees to connect Sadie with his old friend Pascal Balmy, the leader of Le Moulin. While Lucien shoots his latest movie in Marseilles, Sadie heads off to Pascal’s rural commune. There she quickly adapts to life with the collective and makes herself useful by spending long hours translating a book written by Pascal and his comrades. When not working, she swims, sunbathes, and drinks with those around her, forging friendships in the sun.
But not every day runs smoothly. Some people view her with suspicion. “You think you hide from us,” a woman called Aurélie tells her, “but we see you.” Nadia, who was kicked out of the group because “her energy was not a good fit,” warns her of hidden threats within. To maintain her cover, Sadie is forced to indulge in a particularly dangerous liaison. And then there is her increasingly risky business of surveilling the Moulinards, anticipating their next move, studying the activities of a French politician, and inciting an audacious act of aggression.
While all this unfolds, Sadie goes on a separate quest to learn more about Bruno Lacombe, whom Pascal and his fellow eco-warriors regard as their teacher and mentor. A former ’68er and self-proclaimed “anti-civver,” Bruno was a person of interest for the French authorities for five decades. After a tragedy tore his family apart, he disappeared from their radars. For the last 12 years, he has been living as a hermit in a cave, emerging sporadically to communicate with his disciples by email. Sadie hacks and sifts his correspondence, which is largely filled with musings on the relationship between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens — and his theory that the former were in fact a cleverer and more artistic species. At first, Sadie dismisses Bruno’s beliefs as crazed rants. Gradually, however, she starts to become mesmerized by this underground man’s singular outlook on human history and the ways of the world.
If Pascal is charismatic, then Bruno is enigmatic. Sadie never meets him, and so he remains a man of mystery, but his presence is felt throughout by his words. At regular intervals, Kushner puts Sadie’s exploits on hold and in their place brings in Bruno’s thoughts via his emails. Along with his disquisitions on Neanderthals and Homo sapiens (that “interglacial bully who shaped the world we’re stuck with”), he dilates upon topics as diverse as the persecution of the local Cagot people, cave frequencies, Bigfoot, and astronavigation and relays episodes from his own life story, particularly his struggles during the war.
Sadie becomes obsessed with Bruno’s treatises, but not every reader will share her enthusiasm. They are strange, beguiling, and often insightful. However, they are digressive and stall the flow of Sadie’s account. They are also occasionally ponderous and cause the narrative to buckle and sag.
What truly drives the novel is its clear-and-present protagonist. Creation Lake is fronted by a gutsy, flinty, go-getting heroine. Sadie is all the more compelling for being an amalgam of different personas. She is a ruthless agent provocateur who will do what it takes to get the job done. She is an unreliable narrator, cagey about her origins, deluded about her booze problem (“I am a better driver after a few drinks, more focused”), and unmindful of her spiraling identity crisis. Above all, she is a refreshingly candid and wryly humorous commentator, opening up about her “notable” fake breasts, indifference to children, and love of Guns N’ Roses and opining that English has more “nuance and verve” than French, Italian foods and wines are subpar, cinephiles are accountants, and how murder, “when you think about it,” is “understandable.”
Kushner’s novel has secured a place on this year’s Booker Prize longlist. The judges have deemed it “a profound and irresistible page-turner.” It provides much food for thought, not least about prehistory, anarchy, and the moral dilemmas faced by a spy-for-hire. But if the pages fly by, it is not because the book is a high-tension espionage drama but rather an absorbing novel of ideas.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Malcolm Forbes has written for the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He lives in Edinburgh.