I am sitting in my living room, looking out at Raquette Lake shimmering in the sunlight. Each morning my dog Reno feels it’s his duty to bark at the lake. Why, I wonder? Does the movement of the water make him feel the lake is a living creature?

In August I took An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser out of the Long Lake library. I read the book years ago, I think when I was in graduate school, and it is much more detailed and interesting than I remember. Dreiser’s novel is a fictionalized version of the life of Chester Gillette, who died by the electric chair in March of 1908 at Auburn Correctional Facility. Gillette, upon discovering that his girlfriend, Grace Brown, was pregnant with his child, chose the murder of mother and child as a way to free himself from an inconvenient burden. Gillette and Brown were on vacation in the Adirondacks when Brown drowned at Black Bear Lake after being hit over the head by Gillette.

Prior to Brown’s death she and Gillette traveled by train to Tupper Lake, not far from where I am now. Gillette was arrested in Inlet, where I attended a fund raiser with my sisters-in-law last weekend. You can see why I am interested in re-reading the book as its drama occurred in my home territory.

And to my surprise, the book itself fascinated me – not the writing, which clearly is of interest as Dreiser creates the character of Gillette as a misguided young man struggling to better his situation in life, but the physical book itself. The novel was first published in 1925; the book I have from the library is dated 1927. Stuck on the inside back cover is the sleeve with a card insert listing names and dates from checkouts prior to computerized withdrawals. The first signature on the card is from 1950, 74 years ago. One of the names on the card, dated 1955, is a relative of the man who sold the land to my parents in the early 1960s. This book is older than me, handled by people before me, who, like me, have an interest in Adirondack history.

Neither I nor my parents were yet alive when Gillette’s life ended, but I do recall several Adirondack dramas from recent history. For instance, the disappearance of eight-year-old Douglas Legg in 1971 in the woods near Newcomb, also close by. My first boyfriend was from Newcomb and participated in the massive search parties. In spite of their efforts, Legg was never found. His disappearance reminded me of a time not much earlier, possibly in the late 1960s, when my father and his friend Ed were out in a small boat that ran out of gas. They spent the night on the edge of the lake, waiting for daylight to guide them out of the forest. We spent the night searching for them, relieved when they finally appeared at daybreak. The danger wasn’t so much from wild animals but from being unable to find their way; one could circle endlessly in the forest, becoming more confused and lost.

Then there was the much-publicized prison break from Clinton Correctional Facility in 2015. We avoid the Adirondacks in June, which is the peak of black fly season. Black flies are gnat-like insects whose bites create bloody welts. My father enjoyed historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and I remember one in which Tories fleeing the United States to Canada after the Revolutionary War actually died from black fly bites. Many people, including my husband, are allergic to them. Anyway, Richard Matt and David Sweat, after escaping Clinton CF, were believed to be hiding in the woods near Dannemora, just north of the Adirondacks. When imagining their inflamed, fly-bitten bodies, I wondered if they regretted their decision to break free.

I have another book on request with the Long Lake library, The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, about a 13-year-old girl who goes missing from an Adirondack camp in 1975. This book is newly published and on the New York Times bestseller list, so even though I put in a request on August 14th the book is still moving from person to person among those before me. I am eager to read it before the season ends in late October, when we close the house to winter in the Catskills.

New York is a large and beautiful state. People I meet in the Adirondacks tell me I am lucky to live in the Catskills, which, like the Adirondacks, is not only picturesque but has its own historical mysteries. In addition to mountains, we New Yorkers have many water bodies, including the Finger and Great Lakes in the west, the Thousand Islands on the St. Lawrence to the north, and the Hudson River, which runs from the Atlantic to the Adirondacks. When my parents moved to New York state from New Mexico, my mother was surprised by the size of the Hudson (the Rio Grande, she informed me, is not so grand after all). Long Island has the ocean beaches. And, of course, there is the city (The City).

I believe that many Americans, including us New Yorkers, feel we are living through a dark historical period. My personal escape from the gloom and doom of discord and power struggles lies in the appreciation of books and the natural beauty that surrounds us. And dogs, who bark each morning to greet the day.

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