People’s Book and PEN/Faulkner are proud to present a free author talk with Rachel Kushner! PEN/Faulkner’s mission is to champion the breadth and power of fiction in America.

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.

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.

Gwydion Suilebhan is a cultural critic, essayist, and playwright. A lifelong arts advocate, he serves as both the Executive Director of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and the Project Director of the New Play Exchange for the National New Play Network. A founding member of The Welders, a Helen Hayes Award-winning playwrights collective in Washington, DC, Suilebhan previously held the position of Director of Brand and Marketing for Woolly Mammoth. Earlier in his career, he worked as a brand and communications consultant for arts and culture organizations. Suilebhan currently serves on the board of the Alliance for Jewish Theatre. From 2017-2020, he was a member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild of America.

If you’d like to purchase this title online and still support People’s Book, follow the link below:

https://bookshop.org/a/88548/9781982116538

This is an in-person event. Seated capacity at People’s Book is 70 patrons. Standing room is an option. All events are first-come, first-served seating. Accessible seating is always available, please let us know if you need accommodations.

A purchase of one of Rachel Kushner’s books is required at the time of event to enter the signing line (this includes any of her previous novels as well).