Have you ever come to the end of a 400+page book and wondered why you had spent so many hours reading it?  Such was the case for me with Rachel Kushner’s 2024 novel “Creation Lake”.

I bought the book in Berlin at a tiny independent bookstore next to a pottery store where we were shopping. I usually buy a book at indy bookstores when we travel to try to support their independence and existence and did so there as well.  Their selection of books in English was quite limited, but I had read Kushner’s book of essays, “The Hard Crowd” and recalled it favorably and “Creation Lake” had been shortlisted for the Booker , so I made the buy.

It proved to be my reading material for the 17 hour journey from our hotel in Berlin to our front door in Cambridge, so when I became a bit bored and disenchanted with it somewhere 40,000 feet over Ireland, I had to stick with it or watch Tom Cruise for hours.  I did find one interesting surprise when pages 249-280 were doubly included, once after page 120 and once in its rightful spot after 248.  That miscue was apparently limited to my copy since the CPL copy of the book had its pages in the right order.

Not sure how to categorize this book—?murder mystery, thriller, or personality study.  The main character, whose alias had been Amy and was now Sadie, is a contract worker whose specialty appears to be to insert herself into undercover roles as a means of encouraging indidivuals or groups to commit crimes.  She’s not a particularly attractive or interesting character and the real action occupies the briefest of pages just before the book ends.  There are some interesting philosophical asides primarily through the mechanism of emails from one Bruno Lescombe, an old anarchist who withdrew from society long ago but who advises one of the groups that Sadie is subverting.  Thoughts on topics as diverse as our Neanderthal kin, the celestial maps of the Polynesians, and the cave paintings in southwestern France make Bruno the most interesting character in this book.

My negative thoughts were shared by more than 50% of the Google Users who bothered to give it a rating.  On the other hand, a respected reviewer, Dwight Garner, in the NYT described Kushner as  “one of the finest novelists working in the English language. You know from this book’s opening paragraphs that you are in the hands of a major writer, one who processes experience on a deep level. Kushner has a gift for almost effortless intellectual penetration.“, but even Garner finished his review with only luke warm praise.

I didn’t like it but you might.