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American author Rachel Kushner’s most recent novel is set in contemporary rural southwestern France, a land of failing farms, incursive land use and a subversive commune calling itself Le Moulin.
The novel’s narrator, “Sadie Smith,” as she calls herself, is a former undercover agent for an American intelligence agency. After she botched an investigation leading to the acquittal of a radical extremist, she was cut loose from her government employment. She made enough of a name for herself that she is now sought out by shady entrepreneurs to infiltrate and destabilize anti-capitalist organizations.
Intelligent, resourceful and totally amoral, “Smith” has been employed by unnamed organizations to insert herself into the inner workings of Le Moulin. She is able to create a relationship with a young man who has access, through friendship, to one of Le Moulin’s leaders, Pascal.
Pascal’s philosophical mentor is Bruno Lacombe, a reclusive polymath who lives in a cave near the commune, but who is never seen. He communicates with Pascal solely through email, an account into which “Smith” has been able to hack and follow their interaction. His philosophic ramblings indicate that he has decided the only way to redeem society is withdraw completely from it.
Orbiting around these central characters is a host of others, all of whom drive subplots that keep the narrative moving forward, and all of whom are characterized in ways that make it easy for readers to develop relationships with them.
“Smith” is ultimately successful in her mission to manipulate the goals of Le Moulin and bring an untimely end to a lower-level bureaucrat who supports a huge infrastructure project that threatens to destroy the bucolic nature of the region that hosts Lacombe and the Moulinards. For this she is extravagantly well paid, allowing her to take time out before her next anonymous assignment.
Written in short, easily digestible segments, “Creation Lake” is, although not a true mystery, ingeniously mysterious.
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