Creation Lake: A Novel

"'Sadie Smith' is how the narrator introduces herself to her lover, to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to the reader. We never learn her real name. Sadie has met her lover Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian, by 'cold bump'–making him believe the encounter was accidental. And like everyone she chooses to interact with, Lucien is useful to her. … Sadie operates on 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"–