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Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024
Nominated for the National Book Award 2024
Come for the story, stay for the messy female protagonist: Much like Ottessa Moshfegh, Kushner excels in writing complex women that are not crafted to be sympathetic or to function as identification figures. But where Moshfegh investigates extreme aesthetics of disgust and alienation, Kushner takes a more direct political approach. My favorite is still The Mars Room which deals with violence, classism and trauma and also has the most captivating plot, but while The Flamethrowers' slightly convoluted story line tended to aggravate me, I still loved the messy female artist who serves as the protagonist.

And now Kushner twists French noir, giving us a hard-drinking female spy as a narrator. Moving from Italian anarchists (The Flamethrowers) to French leftist thinkers around Guy Debord, Kushner's latest protagonist, 34-year-old American Sadie Smith (not her real name), aims to infiltrate the anarchist eco-commune "Le Moulin" around Bruno Lacombe which is located in the limestone regions of southern France. Lacombe rambles to his followers about the Neanderthals and spits conspiracy theories, the group is accused of sabotaging capitalist ventures they deem to harm the environment.

But this is not another book about climate change, the destruction of the environment, extremist bubbles, or the importance of framing narratives, no: It's strong when it illuminates the language PhD drop out and now spy-for-hire known as Sadie. She seems to like her job, she is unscrupulous and cold, she employs her beauty to get her job done, but her psychological turmoil prompted by a feeling of emptiness shines through the cracks of her narration. Her ruminations, often inspired by her astute observations, reveal a grim world-view that reflect a disillusionment with humans in general. To her, ideological belief systems are just another quirk.

What really bothered me though was the extensive reflection of Bruno's ideas: The essayistic endeavors that overwhelm the book show a lack of interest in plot, which is not a problem per se, but the theorizing just didn't captivate me enough. Extra points though for the connection to Houellebecq's ³§Ã©°ù´Ç³Ù´Ç²Ô¾±²Ô±ð, very smartly done. Overall, an interesting effort, that, for my taste, goes slightly overboard.