I’ve tried Rachel Kushner’s books before but they’re a little over my head. However, I’m on a spy kick and it just so happens that her new one is a critically acclaimed spy novel and, while knowing it would still be different from the usual pulpy thrill of typical espionage fare, I decided to try it.
The cool thing about writing espionage is that we all desire to lead secret lives and espionage fiction allows us to explore that. The sad necessity of hiding human sexuality is prevalent in spy novels where plot and theme converge with books such as The Torqued Man and the Vera Kelly series. Spy novels also function as tour guides to the world and the human psyche.
The structure of this: “Sadie’s” maneuvering in an eco-commune coupled with alternating chapters of emails from an anti-capitalist luddite with a fascination for Neanderthals frustrated me at times but it added to the off-kilter nature of the book. I wanted more of Sadie operating and more of her inner monologue as she grapples with who she is while not quite being certain of who she wants to be. But Bruno, whoever he is, helps her form that identity.
And that’s another clever usage of the spy novel: using it to examine our place in the world when we are unsure. “Sadie” isn’t especially good at her job as the book makes clear but her job is a locus for examining the emptiness of her life, the concept of “identity,” and the future of the planet.
I probably didn’t land with it the way the hardcore lit crowd likely will but it moved me enough to be one of the better things I’ve read this year.