Rachel Kushner - Creation Lake
Presented by Left Bank Books, Left Bank Books Foundation, & Schlafly Public Library
*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*
Rachel Kushner returns to St. Louis for the paperback tour for Creation Lake! Kushner has deep family ties to St. Louis, and we are thrilled to welcome her back for one of the best books of 2024. Come hear Kushner discuss this significant work described as "vital" (The Washington Post) and "wickedly entertaining" (The Guardian). Creation Lake is Kushner's finest achievement yet--a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure.
"At last I get to say how deeply, madly, irrecoverably I loved Creation Lake... it was all stylish and cool and then somehow the book struck a blow to my heart." --Louise Erdrich
"Creation Lake reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture. Only Rachel Kushner could weave environmental activism, paranoia, and nihilism into a gripping philosophical thriller. Enthralling and sleekly devious, this book is also a lyrical reflection on both the origin and the fate of our species. A novel this brilliant and profound shouldn't be this much fun." --Hernan Diaz
Kushner will personalize and sign copies after the presentation! Personalized and signed copies will be available to be mailed anywhere in the country. For personalized copies, please order before noon on July 9th.
Kushner will be in conversation with St. Louis author Kea Wilson, author of We Eat Our Own and importantly a huge Rachel Kushner fan.
Join us at Schlafly Public Library
225 N. Euclid Ave
St. Louis, MO 63108
Please RSVP for this event
https://forms.gle/AaPRWW2Sjrjfo7EG9
This event is possible thanks to the support of individual donations to the Left Bank Books Foundation. Donate today!
https://www.left-bank.com/lbb-foundation-donation
Your presence is a gift. When you attend our readings and purchase visiting authors' titles, you help us sustain our events calendar and continue to offer free literary programming to the community. Join us!
About the Speakers
Rachel Kushner is the author of the New York Times bestseller Creation Lake, her latest novel; The Hard Crowd, her acclaimed essay collection; and the internationally bestselling novels The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers, and Telex from Cuba, as well as a book of short stories, The Strange Case of Rachel K. She has won the Prix Médicis and been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Folio Prize, and was twice a finalist for the Booker Prize and the National Book Award in Fiction. Creation Lake was also longlisted for the National Book Award. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and the recipient of the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her books have been translated into twenty-seven languages.
Kea Wilson is Senior Editor for Streetsblog USA. She has more than a dozen years experience as a writer telling emotional, urgent and actionable stories that motivate average Americans to get involved in making their cities better places. She is also a novelist, cyclist, and affordable housing advocate. She lives in St. Louis, MO. For tips, submissions, and general questions, reach out at
a2VhIHwgc3RyZWV0c2Jsb2cgISBvcmc=, on X at @streetsblogkea, or on Bluesky @keawilson.bsky.social.
About Creation Lake
*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.
You may also like the following events from Left Bank Books:
Also check out other
Arts events in St. Louis,
Literary Art events in St. Louis,
Nonprofit events in St. Louis.
