{"id":482,"date":"2008-02-26T08:45:32","date_gmt":"2008-02-26T13:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danversreads.wordpress.com\/?p=482"},"modified":"2008-02-26T08:45:32","modified_gmt":"2008-02-26T13:45:32","slug":"the-reserve-by-russell-banks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/?p=482","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The Reserve&#8221; by Russell Banks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/reserve.jpg\" title=\"reserve.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/danversreads.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/02\/reserve.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"reserve.jpg\" align=\"left\" \/><\/a>Perhaps familiarity really does breed contempt-I so looked forward to reading Banks&#8217; new novel about my favorite part of the world, the High Peaks of the Adirondacks that I suppose I couldn&#8217;t help but be disappointed. Banks beautifully recreates a landscape and truthfully conveys the class distinctions that define the way of life among these majestic mountains almost to this day. I just happened to find the plot somewhat forced and the best of his characters not wholly realized.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan Groves, loosely based on artist Rockwell Kent, is a fine character who when it counts receives emotional short shrift from the author. Banks&#8217; female protagonist Vanessa Cole inhabits a  persona whose femme fatale appeal left me cold .Is she a victim, mentally ill or a sociopath?-Banks leaves it all ambiguous. Groves&#8217; wife Alicia and a &#8220;local&#8221;, Hubert St Germain are the most fascinating characters that I came to care about though Banks uses them primarily as devices to advance his somewhat outlandish plot.<\/p>\n<p>Then it all ends rather abruptly- I know first hand that this rich landscape and these mountains hold many stories and many secrets. This book only begins to tell just one of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps familiarity really does breed contempt-I so looked forward to reading Banks&#8217; new novel about my favorite part of the world, the High Peaks of the Adirondacks that I suppose I couldn&#8217;t help but be disappointed. Banks beautifully recreates a landscape and truthfully conveys the class distinctions that define the way of life among these&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6V6sR-7M","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}