Author: Patricia Reiss Brooks. The author is the daughter of Julian Reiss, the founder of Santa's Workshop located in Wilmington, N.Y.
Publisher: Pinto Press
Year published: 2004
What it covers: This is a work of fiction and its subtitle, An Adirondack Novel of Courage, Danger and Love, describes it well. It is set in the mid-1920s and reflects the history of Saranac Lake with its "cure" industry and culture and contrast this with the wealth and exclusivity of The Lake Placid Club. The novel begins with the early and harsh arrival of winter and follows Joe Devlin as he travels to Saranac Lake to visit and financially support his young wife, Alice, a tuberculosis patient. Although fiction, the novel illustrates the difficulty of a cure that required mostly time, spent idly reclining in bed or propped in cure chair even on the coldest winter days and nights. It also confronts the cost of a cure that typically lasted years: the cost of a cure cottage, doctor's visits, x-rays, pneumothorax, medicines, bedside trays and cure chair rental. As these cost add up, Joe Devlin supplements his income from his job as a mechanic at the Lake Placid Club first by repairing and modifying the motor vehicles of bootleggers and eventually becomes a rum runner himself, dodging State Troop B's Black Horse Brigade. The novel visits places and events well known to many: Keene Valley, Hulls Falls, the Au Sable River, Helen Hill, the Riverside Inn and the Winter Carnival.
"I read this book and loved it! I gave it to both of my daughters-in-law for Christmas one year and they both loved it, too. It is a delight to read of life in familiar surroundings during an unfamiliar period, learning of the trials of the TB cure as well as the activities in the surrounding communities and also enjoy the beautiful love story of the young couple. I highly recommend this book."
—Cindy Smith, Saranac Lake
This book may be purchased at the Historic Saranac Lake Bookstore.
