How L.A. fuels local literary lynchpin Rachel Kushner

Welcome to the L.A. Times Book Club newsletter.

Hello, fellow readers. I’m culture critic and fervent bookworm Chris Vognar.

This week we speak with novelist and Los Angeles literary lynchpin Rachel Kushner, whose new book, “Creation Lake,” has landed on the Booker Prize shortlist, an honor that also went to her 2018 novel “The Mars Room.” We also look at some recent releases reviewed by Times critics and check in with the venerable Los Feliz bookstore Skylight Books.

In “Creation Lake,” a 30-something government agent uses her wits and looks to infiltrate an anarchist collective in rural France. Calling herself “Sadie,” she makes her inroads by seducing a rich Parisian filmmaker, and slowly falls under the sway of the collective’s mentor, the old cave-dweller Bruno Lacombe. He believes the time for revolution has passed, and the only answer now is a return to primitive beginnings.

Sadie emerges as a sly take on the Ugly American, confident in her abilities but comically insensitive to her surroundings (“To my palette Italian wine is more or less table wine. It is wine in a box”). Reading through Bruno’s emails, which extol the virtues of the Neanderthal (or “Thals”), she charges ahead, and perhaps even expands her frame of thought.

Kushner took time to discuss the book and Los Angeles culture from her book tour in London.

Rachel Kushner’s “Creation Lake” centers on a 30-something American government agent attempting to infiltrate a French anarchist collective.

(Chloe Aftel / Scribner)

You grew up in San Francisco, but you’ve lived in Los Angeles for 21 years. How does the city fuel your work and your imagination?

In all kinds of ways. There’s the amplitude of the county and the dynamism of life there, and the economy and the diversity of people doing different kinds of things. People who aren’t from there think Los Angeles is Hollywood, which is a pretty confused way to think about the city. People think that it doesn’t have street life, and it absolutely does. In the neighborhood where I live, Angelino Heights and Echo Park, I can leave my house and just wander out to see what people are doing on a warm Friday night.

And I love the geographical glamor of Los Angeles. I think it’s the most beautiful city in the world, and I have been around the world. I have seen what it has to offer. There are some other stunning places, but in December, when the citrus is coming ripe and the San Gabriel Mountains have snow on them, it just can’t be beat.

What was the seed for “Creation Lake”?

I knew for many years that I wanted to write a novel set in a particular part of rural France among a group of young people from Paris who set up a commune and are set on a collision course with the French state, and the French police. And I pictured them having this mentor like I created in my book, Bruno Lacombe, who has decided that capitalism is here to stay and no revolution is coming. Instead, he proposes his own kind of homespun philosophy about revolutionizing consciousness.

But I hadn’t come up with an outside visitor until I realized that the narrator was a kind of devil. And then right away, the first two lines of the book came to me: “Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said. He said they were prone to addiction, too, and especially smoking.” I knew that that was Bruno talking, and that it was somebody else transposing his voice. And pretty quickly I knew that she would sort of pull back and ridicule him or editorialize, and then I could flip to the present action. Then it just became about this duality between her and Bruno. And I wanted to have very short chapters that would kind of spring load the reader from one scene to the next.

You studied political economy at UC Berkeley?

Yeah. I had a few reasons why I didn’t study English. First of all, I was 16 when I went to Berkeley, and it was really easy for me to be a good student in economics and history and political science, but to analyze a novel and have something interesting to say at 16, I didn’t have that level of emotional maturity. Also, I was interested in politics and just wanted to have some sense of the mechanics of the world. So it made sense to me.

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The Week(s) in Books

Hamilton Cain writes about two new studies of Impressionism’s radical roots in a new story.

(J. Paul Getty Museum / Courtesy of Norton)

Julie M. Klein reviews Malcolm Gladwell’s “Revenge of the Tipping Point”: “To his adept synthesis of academic research he adds journalistic curiosity, a crisp prose style and a mastery of counter-intuitive juxtapositions.”

Lorraine Berry looks at two books that explore the intersection of race and policing: Ron Stallworth’s “The Gangs of Zion” and Jessica Pishko’s “The Highest Law in the Land.” As she writes, “A stock character in American crime stories is the maverick cop, the hero who bucks the system and bends the rules to bring in the bad guys. Intrinsic to the macho stereotype is that his (or, rarely, her) shield is backed up with physical violence, or that his ever-present gun is his ultimate claim to authority.”

Hamilton Cain writes about two new studies of Impressionism’s radical roots: Sebastian Smee’s “Paris in Ruins” and Jackie Wullschläger‘s “Monet: The Restless Vision.” “While they differ in scope,” he writes, “both are graceful, fluent, resonant additions to art history.”

And Scarlett Harris digs into Ashley Spencer’s “Disney High,” the story of the rise and fall of Disney Channel. “The success of Disney Channel was kind of an accident,” she writes.

Bookstore Faves

The general manager of Skylight Books in Los Feliz talks about what trends they’re seeing.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

We caught up with Mary Williams, general manager of Skylight Books, to find out what’s hot now and what’s coming up.

What’s been flying off the shelves this week?

This week is all about Sally Rooney’s “Intermezzo.” That book has exploded off the mark. We sold many dozens the day it was published. It feels like everyone who walks in the door wants to know where the Sally Rooney stack is. But it feels like every Tuesday some major title is coming out. A couple of weeks ago it was Danzy Senna’s “Colored Television” and Rachel Kushner’s “Creation Lake,” which have both been huge for us. We’re definitely in the throes of a great fall season for books.

What’s coming up that has you excited?

Personally, I am looking forward to the new Haruki Murakami book that’s coming out in November, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls.” We’re going to do a midnight release party for that, so that should be a lot of fun. I’m also excited about the new Louise Erdrich novel, “The Mighty Red,” which comes out Oct. 1.

That’s all for now. Keep on reading, and we’ll see you next time.