Alexandra Schwartz reviews Kushner’s latest novel, which has been short-listed for the Booker Prize and marks a break from the mode of “The Flamethrowers” and “The Mars Room.”
Chief among Sadie’s assets are her command of languages and her “banal and conventional looks,” which she tallies like a shopkeeper’s list of dry goods: “symmetrical face, small straight nose, regular features, brown eyes, brown hair, clear skin.” In preparation for her mission, she has already targeted a dopey filmmaker named Lucien, an old friend of the Moulinards’ leader, Pascal Balmy. Sadie hopes that Lucien can vouch for her, but first she must get him to trust her himself.
Kushner heaps flashback upon flashback; minor characters flare promisingly to life—a creepy uncle of Lucien’s, a disgruntled ex-Moulinard—before sputtering out, victims of their own inconsequence. Eventually, Sadie has a tryst with a Moulinard named René, who is straight out of central casting for terse French men who like to smoke and fuck.
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