“Only activists from Paris would take up subsistence farming in a place like this,” thinks the unnamed narrator going by “Sadie Smith” of Creation Lake. This novel has been called funny, but this kind of deadpan humor, along with comments about what she did not say, are about the funniest it gets.
Sadie is a provocateur who infiltrates fringe groups to observe them for signs of violence, and if there are none, sometimes create it. She used to work for the FBI until pressure from her superiors caused her to persuade a naïve young man into planning a violent act. Then when he and his co-conspirator successfully pled entrapment, her bosses threw her under the bus. Now she works for corporations and wealthy clients, not always aware of who her clients are.
For her present assignment, she has become the fiancée of Lucien, a filmmaker, just to get close to his friend Pascal, the leader of an activist commune in a remote rural area of southwestern France. Sadie’s mission is to again watch the group for plots and also keep an eye on a sleazy politician named Platon. The activists, called the Moulinards, are concerned about a plan to drain all the aquifers in the area to make a giant reservoir. Sadie will be staying in an empty house owned by Lucien’s family and helping Pascal with an English translation of some documents.
Central to the group’s beliefs is an email correspondence with Bruno Lacombe, their mentor, who has withdrawn from the world to live in a vast cavern in the area. Sadie has been able to crack his email to read his messages to the group, which are mostly concerned with the lessons they can learn from Neanderthals. Some of these ideas can make you think, but most are completely unsupported by science, yet presented as if they’re scientific. And a group less likely to commit violence I cannot imagine.
I have to admit to getting tired of reading Bruno’s rambling emails, and of course, Sadie isn’t a likable character. However, the book picked up in the second half.
I’ve read only two other books by Kushner, but one of them seemed also to be concerned with the intersection between wealth and fringe violent groups, not really a topic I find interesting. I read it for my Booker Prize project.
I felt this was a book of two halves. The Bruno sections really dragged for me but I thought the rest was great fun.
Yes, I agree. Well fun may not be the word for me, but they were a lot more interesting and moved along better.