The Perfect Adirondack Day: Russell Banks' Captivating Literary Vision

Novelist Russell Banks is celebrated for his ability to recreate the world of the Adirondacks with words. Named an official New York State Author by the New York State Writers Institute, his novels often place mystery and intrigue into winding rivers and skyscraping pines. Read it for yourself.

It was a cool, cloudless morning, the air so dry it felt like all the moisture had been wrung from it — what Jordan enjoyed calling a perfect Adirondack day, referring not to the season or the temperature, but to the brilliant light. Winter or summer, on days like this under a cobalt blue sky, everything in his sight was sharply detailed ... making him feel like he could see and touch each and every leaf on each and every tree, every patch of lichen on every rock, every boulder glistening in the stream. He drove the Ford over Balsam Hill and down the long slope to the grassy pastures of Tunbridge below, and his vision felt microscopic. Who needs the forest, when you can see the individual leaves of the individual trees? he said to himself. Who needs the mountains, when you can see the very rocks that make them? In light this clear and bright, it was all there, the entire universe, no matter where in it he looked.

This entry is exceprted from The Reserve by Russell Banks.