Detached from the rest of the country on the eve of World War I, the tuberculosis-stricken residents of an Adirondack lakeside sanatorium are housed in accordance with their economic status and languish in their isolation before an enterprising patient initiates a weekly discussion group.

A moving, multi-generational family story centered around a woman's return to her late grandmother's lake cottage, and the long-buried secrets she uncovers there.

Two culturally different young people meet in Warsaw, Poland, fall in love, marry, and move to America, where they move to the Adirondack Mountains in New York State and try to earn a living from running a dry-goods store, mining, and helping to build a railroad.

Banks tells a story that begins with a school bus accident. Using four different narrators, he creates a small town morality play that addresses one of life's most agonizing questions: when the worst thing happens, who do you blame?

A novel on John Brown, the slavery abolitionist, narrated by one of his 20 children. The narrator is his son Owen, who fought at his father's side and he tells the story in a series of letters to a biographer. Owen describes his father as a loving family man and provides insight into Brown's motives for becoming an abolitionist, including business failures.

Dave retreats alone to a lodge in the Adirondacks to mourn his passing son in order to restart his life.