Résumé: (3.5 stars) With THE RESERVE, set in an exclusive private resort in the expansive wilderness park of the Adirondack mountains in north-eastern New York, Russell Banks takes us back to the mid nineteen thirties. While the Great Depression has left its detrimental impact on the impoverished local population, the rich and famous don't have to adjust their lifestyle at all... Within the confines of the resort, Banks explores two distinct social strata by focusing of four central characters who, each in their own way, are attempting to challenge the established class conventions and barriers through their actions.

We are literally flown to the shores of Second Tamarack Lake and into the midst of a July 4th party at one of the luxurious estates. Jordan Groves, artist and "man of action" flies his small pontoon plane, illegally, right into the midst of the upper-crust get together, hosted by well-known brain surgeon Dr. Cole and his pretty, yet subdued wife. Vanessa, their daughter, beautiful and wild, is the personified seductress and it is not difficult to guess who will be the next object if her charm offensive.

Jordan Groves, loosely based on Rockwell Kent, has reached sufficient notoriety, as an artist and writer /illustrator of travel accounts to wild places and also as a ladies man, that he can ignore, usually successfully, the confines of his lower class upbringing. He is also wealthy and has his beautiful, accomplished wife, Alicia, to show for who has the correct credentials. The forth principal protagonist is Hubert St. Germain, the taciturn local park guide, who like other locals is forced, due to the lack of other employment opportunities, to provide varied services to the wealthy resident owners in the Reserve and their illustrious guests.

A tragedy at the Cole estate triggers a series of events that affects all four protagonists in different, yet in each case dramatic, ways. Banks uses the unfolding events to develop psychological portraits of the four individuals and sets them against each other - physically and emotionally. Predictably, there were childhood dramas, unresolved sufferings and more. Deeper questions of "what is truth" stand against "what is betrayal" and "what is love". For Vanessa, for example, "...truth was more a coloration of reality than the organizing principle of its underlying structure... It was something one could assert and a moment later turn around and deny, with no sense of there being a contradiction." Jordan, by contrast has found a definition of "love" for his wife that, at the same time, allows constant sexual conquests without feeling regrets. Alicia is forced to questions more than her marriage and the morality of her own behaviour. Hubert, in the end has to confront the consequences of being truthful to the detriment of his own and other people's happiness.

The build-up towards the culmination of drama seen through the eyes of the four protagonists, given the author ample opportunity to fill in blanks in their respective backgrounds and personal and emotional make-ups. The intimate scenario of the Adirondacks is interrupted by short sections that pulls the reader forward by a year - to 1937 and the Spanish Civil War. These sections, while they give insights into future events that impact the protagonists, they are too short to get a sense of connectedness. Similarly, the sighting by Groves of the German Zeppelin airship, 'Hindenburg' over the mountains feels too deliberate an incident and is not well integrated into the story.

In a lesser wordsmith, this story would have read like a light romantic novel with some disasters thrown in. Banks goes deeper into the underlying issues of the day and the ethical questions emerging from the crises. Unfortunately, the central characters and those surrounding them are, to a certain degree, stereotyped rather than explored in their individuality. The result is a novel not as convincing as one would have liked. [Friederike Knabe]