Dark Trees to the Wind: A Cycle of York State Years

xiv, 370 pp. Decorations by John O'Hara Cosgrave, II. Carl Carmer weaves the pattern of his narrative out of people--people of an almost infinite variety and richness. Here are Lon Whiteman, America's greatest embezzler with a knack of victimizing bank presidents; Major Noah, who tried to establish Israel on American soil a hundred years ago; a girl named Lavender from the Ramapo mountains frozen to death in a sequin evening dress and--perhaps--returning to haunt the country twilight; the great Cayuga Indian who went to Geneva to get justice for his people; the incredible Fowlers, who designed octagonal houses and felt the bumps on people's heads--and dozens more. Here, too, are the wonderful, dry, incisive stories that Yonkers tell each other, and in words and pictures, the flavor and color and people and scenery of an empire that is both a geography and a history.