Creation Lake

A Novel

De: Rachel Kushner

Narrado por: Rachel Kushner

2024 AUDIOFILE MAGAZINE EARPHONES AWARD WINNER!

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE*
*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD*
*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 PEN FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION*
*AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
*NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE ATLANTIC, VULTURE, VOGUE, THE WASHINGTON POST, KIRKUS REVIEWS, NPR, THE ECONOMIST, THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, VOX, and more*

From Rachel Kushner, two-time finalist for both the Booker Prize and National Book Award, a “vital” (The Washington Post) and “wickedly entertaining” (The Guardian) novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France—a propulsive page-turner filled with dark humor.

Creation Lake is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics and clean beauty who is sent to do dirty work in France. “Sadie Smith” is how the narrator introduces herself to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to her lover, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian she has met by “cold bump”—making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone she targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her “contacts”—shadowy figures in business and government—instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more.

In this region of old farms and prehistoric caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who believes that the path to emancipation is not revolt but a return to the ancient past. Just as Sadie is certain she’s the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story.

Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner’s rendition of “noir” is taut and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner’s finest achievement yet—a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"It's hard to imagine anyone other than Rachel Kushner narrating her gripping and highly original novel about an unconventional spy...Kushner's excellent narration gives Sadie's voice a sardonic yet intimate tone. Through Sadie, an American, Kushner describes the seedy underbelly of modern European society, one that tosses aside those who scramble to survive. This Europe, Kushner reminds us, is about as far from the glossy cosmopolitanism that tourists and the ultra-wealthy inhabit as it's possible to get. Masterful writing and narrating."

Author should not have been the reader

This would have been so much better with a professional reader. The author is so out of sync with the character and left it hard to engage with the story. Felt like an obligation to listen.

Lots of interesting ideas

Sadly, the author butchers the reading of her own work with a monotonous cadence and poor pronunciation of French words and names.

I couldn’t bother to finish it.

It just droned on about nothing. I tried to stay with it, but gave up.

Next time, please hire a professional narrator

The book is too wordy, but the worst problem is the reader. I don’t know what the author was thinking! She is not a good narrator. I’ve read that her other novels are better, but when I saw that she narrated them, too, I crossed them off my wish list.

Lack of a story

There is actual story within the book. It is only the author’s ramblings on her perception of the world