The Library Foundation of Hillsboro was thrilled to host a conversation with author Rachel Kushner on Nov. 1, 2024. Kushner’s latest novel, Creation Lake, was on the shortlist for this year’s Booker Prize, and her previous books have also been critically acclaimed. At the end of the evening, an audience member raved, “She was a mesmerizing speaker.” Just as she is as a writer!
The conversation between Kushner and Foundation Board member, David Edwards, covered her cultural and artistic influences as well as her personal evolution over time. Kushner noted that the philosophy and biology backgrounds of her parents, coupled with their openness and bohemian outlooks, provided her with space to explore and be curious about all sorts of people and realities. Her own studies in political science, Latin American studies, and some years later an MFA from Columbia University, informed her ways of viewing life and social relationships.
Kushner noted that her piece of advice for writers is to find the thing in the world that you know the secrets about, and write about that. In her case, her first novel, Telex from Cuba, is a fictionalized reflection of the experiences her grandparents’ generation had lived in Cuba before and during the Revolution. Her next book, The Flamethrowers, was set in the parts of New York that she knew well, albeit in an earlier era, in an artistic milieu similar to the one she found herself a part of.
As she shared about her most recent work, Creation Lake, Kushner noted that some of the plots of the book followed newspaper articles and stories that she had found fascinating. For example, there is a young man in the UK who sued the government for the ontological reality of not having a father, since the “father” was a spy who had a relationship with the boy’s mother only for the sake of spying on her. A storyline in which this idea is intertwined with other fascinating philosophically and ecologically interesting characters creates an exciting and engrossing read.
The evening ended a book signing – all of the copies purchased for the event were sold out!
