The Reserve
Russell Banks, 2008
HarperCollins
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061430251
Summary
Part love story, part murder mystery, set on the cusp of the Second World War, Russell Banks's sharp-witted and deeply engaging new novel raises dangerous questions about class, politics, art, love, and madness—and explores what happens when two powerful personalities, trapped at opposite ends of a social divide, begin to break the rules.
Twenty-nine-year-old Vanessa Cole is a wild, stunningly beautiful heiress, the adopted only child of a highly regarded New York brain surgeon and his socialite wife. Twice married, Vanessa has been scandalously linked to any number of rich and famous men. But on the night of July 4, 1936, at her parents' country home in a remote Adirondack Mountain enclave known as The Reserve, two events coincide to permanently alter the course of Vanessa's callow life: her father dies suddenly of a heart attack, and a mysteriously seductive local artist, Jordan Groves, blithely lands his Waco biplane in the pristine waters of the forbidden Upper Lake. . . .
Jordan's reputation has preceded him; he is internationally known as much for his exploits and conquests as for his paintings themselves, and, here in the midst of the Great Depression, his leftist loyalties seem suspiciously undercut by his wealth and elite clientele. But for all his worldly swagger, Jordan is as staggered by Vanessa's beauty and charm as she is by his defiant independence. He falls easy prey to her electrifying personality, but it is not long before he discovers that the heiress carries a dark, deeply scarring family secret. Emotionally unstable from the start, and further unhinged by her father's unexpected death, Vanessa begins to spin wildly out of control, manipulating and destroying the lives of all who cross her path.
Moving from the secluded beauty of the Adirondack wilderness to the skies above war-torn Spain and Fascist Germany, The Reserve is a clever, incisive, and passionately romantic novel of suspense that adds a new dimension to this acclaimed author's extraordinary repertoire. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 28, 1940
• Where—Newton, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—University of North Carolina
• Awards—John Dos Passos Award for Fiction
• Currently—lives in upstate New York
Russell Banks was raised in a hardscrabble, working-class world that has profoundly shaped his writing. In Banks's compassionate, unlovely tales, people struggle mightily against economic hardship, family conflict, addictions, violence, and personal tragedy; yet even in the face of their difficulties, they often exhibit remarkable resilience and moral strength.
Although he began his literary career as a poet, Banks forayed into fiction in 1975 with a short story collection Searching for Survivors and his debut novel, Family Life. Several more critically acclaimed works followed, but his real breakthrough occurred with 1985's Continental Drift, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel that juxtaposes the startlingly different experiences of two families in America. In 1998, he earned another Pulitzer nomination for his historical novel Cloudsplitter, an ambitious re-creation of abolitionist John Brown.
Since the 1980s, Banks has lived in upstate New York—a region he (like fellow novelists William Kennedy and Richard Russo) has mined to great effect in several novels. Two of his most powerful stories, Affliction (1990) and The Sweet Hereafter (1991), have been adapted for feature films. (At least two others have been optioned.) He has also received numerous honors and literary awards, including the prestigious John Dos Passos Prize for fiction. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The plot of The Reserve, which takes place in the Adirondacks in the summer of 1936, moves not with the swift, sharklike momentum of his best fiction but in a hokey, herky-jerky fashion that never lets the reader forget that Mr. Banks is standing there behind the proscenium, pulling the characters’ strings. Even the language he uses is weirdly secondhand: a bizarre melange of Hemingwayesque action prose and romance-novel cliches that manages to feel faux macho and sickly sweet at the same time.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Banks is a genius at showing people slipping into crises that scramble their moral reason, but this story depends on several startling revelations that alter everything we thought we knew about these characters. In some ways, The Reserve is a romantic thriller laboring away in the heavy costume of social realism. It vacillates oddly between aha moments and long passages of subtle analysis. And the novel's complicated political and aesthetic concerns are too quickly upstaged by romantic angst and bedroom shenanigans.... one more incongruous element in this alternately engaging and frustrating novel.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Banks’s new novel, The Reserve, may well be the best—and darkest—work of fiction written to date about the storied regiou of high peaks, glacial lakes, and vast forests covering an area nearly teh size of Massachusetts.
Boston Globe
[A] riveting narrative, featuring an almost pot-boiling love story...tantalizing.... Banks works with a vast palette and a sure stylistic command. The Reserve gratifies page by page.
Los Angeles Times
The novel’s strength...is the story Banks has to tell...The Reserve captures the drama, not just of these characters’ lives, but of this moment in American history.
Atlanta Journal-Costitution
This is a vividly imagined book. It has the romantic atmosphere of those great 1930s tales in film and prose, and it speeds the reader along from its first pages. In fact, Banks talents are so large—and the novel so fundamentally engaging—that it continued to pull me in even when, in its climactic moments, I could no longer comprehend why the characters were doing what they were doing. By then, the denouement has been determined largely by the literary expectations of a bygone era where character flaws require a tragic end. Despite that, The Reserve is a pleasure well worth savoring.
Scot Turow - Publishers Weekly
It all begins on July 4, 1936, in the achingly beautiful and unspoiled Adirondack Mountains, where the wealthy built their summer retreats. Vanessa Cole is one of the lucky ones: her family inherited land on "the Reserve" before the implementation of building restrictions, and as such, it owns a secluded lodge that can be reached only by boat and plane. On that July night, Vanessa's father invites local artist Jordan Groves to the lodge to see his art collection, but it's the meeting between Jordan and Vanessa that will show just how destructive this seclusion and sense of privilege can be. Known for his complex and conflicted characters, Banks (Rule of the Bone) here reveals how the mentally unbalanced Vanessa and Jordan, a wealthy, married socialist, are attracted to these contradictions in each other. The plot gets off to a slow start, but the breathtaking scenic descriptions create a setting central to the story. As the chain of events builds to an inevitable and tragic conclusion, we are left with the feeling that no one, not even the well-to-do, can escape the laws of nature. Recommended for all libraries. —Kellie Gillespie
Library Journal
A left-wing artist tangles with a troubled heiress in this characteristically somber, class-conscious novel from Banks. On the evening of July 4, 1936, at their luxurious summer camp in a privately owned Adirondacks wilderness reserve, Carter and Evelyn Cole get a visit from Jordan Groves, a Rockwell Kent-like creator of woodcuts, prints and etchings. Though Jordan's a notorious Red who has little use for people like the Coles (he's there to look at some paintings), it's hard for this inveterate womanizer to resist the attentions of their beautiful daughter Vanessa, twice-divorced veteran of many scandalous love affairs. She is also, Banks reveals not long into the narrative (with a shockingly unexpected image of Evelyn Cole bound and gagged by her daughter), quite crazy. After Dr. Cole has a fatal heart attack the night of Jordan's visit, Vanessa becomes convinced (not without reason) that her mother plans to have her committed once again to a discreet Swiss asylum. So Vanessa ties up Mom and implausibly manages to enlist the help of Hubert St. Germain, one of the many locals whose ill-paid seasonal work comes from serving the summer people. Hubert is also the lover of Jordan's discontented wife Alicia, and learning of their affair drives the artist into Vanessa's arms-though not before her mother has been disposed of in a shotgun accident. Dark hints that Dr. Cole sexually abused Vanessa have been freely scattered, but also cast into serious doubt. A catastrophic fire covers up the evidence of Evelyn's demise, and Hubert gets off scot-free despite having confessed his involvement to the odious manager of the Reserve's country club. Jordan and Vanessa meet theirseparate just deserts in ends that owe more to history (the Hindenburg crash, the Spanish Civil War) than the author's imagination. Banks is one of America's finest novelists, but this oddly distanced work lacks the passionate personal engagement of a masterpiece like Continental Drift (1985) or the bracing historical revisionism of Cloudsplitter .
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Reserve:
1. Banks offers a sobering description of the US in the throes of the Great Depression. Talk about the people and hardships he presents in this novel.
2. Much of Banks's book is about socio-economic class. How do class divisions reveal themselves in the book? What does the author's tone suggest about his attitude toward class? In what way do class distinctions exist today...do they exist in the same manner?
3. The staff and servants are are "allowed onto the Reserve and club grounds, but only to work, and not to fish or hunt or hike on their own.... The illusion of wilderness was as important to maintain as the reality." What does Banks mean by that statement? Why is illusion important?
4. What kind of man is Jordan Groves? How would you describe him? Does he have a moral center?
5. What about Vanessa Cole? What do you think of her...and what does Jordan think about her? Why does Jordan allow himself to become entangled with her?
6. Discuss the following passage describing Vanessa's relationship with truth:
The truth was somewhat transient and changeable, one minute here, the next gone. It was something one could assert and a moment later turn around and deny, with no sense of there being any contradiction. Merely a correction.
7. Talk about Hubert S. Germain and the ways in which he differs from Vanessa and Jordan? How does he get caught up in the events of the story? Would you consider him the moral force in the story? Perhaps the most sympathetic?
8. Talk about Alicia. What does her affair with Hubert cause her to realize about her marriage to Jordan?
9. Were you surprised by the plot's twist and turns, the revelations that come later? How do those revelations alter what we know about the characters?
10. Russell Banks intersperses italicized chapters between the formal chapters. Did you have difficulty with them at first? Do they make sense to you now? Do they ever get resolved? Why might Banks have used this time-shifting structure?
11. There has been much talk by critics of Banks channeling Hemingway in the book. Evidences of Ernest are in the name of Banks's lead character (Robert Jordan is the main character in For Whom the Bells Toll), the Spanish Civil War episodes, and the way Banks uses Hemingwayesque prose. Have you read Hemingway's work, particularly For Whom the Bells Toll? If so, can you see similarities in prose style? Why might Banks have drawn from Hemingway? Is this simply a homage to the former writer...or something else?
12. In addition to class issues (see Question #1), the novel is also concerned with individual identity. How do world events—the depression and the rise of facism—affect characters' sense of who they are and what they believe in? To what degree do characters change by the end of the novel...or do they change?
13. The setting is the heavily forested Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. What symbolic significance does the natural setting have in this story? What might the wilderness represent for the characters?
14. Do you care for any of these characters?
15. Is the ending of The Reserve satisfying? Are loose ends tied up, issues and questions resolved? Would you have preferred a different ending?
16. Did you enjoy reading this novel? Have you read other novels by Russell Banks? If so, how does this compare? If not, are you inspired to read others?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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