The Pinnacle: A Novel

248 pp. Rochester, New York author. "For Holley Mathew, loving Silky Cornel was a matter as natural and outside the canons of society as was the rest of the hunter's and poacher's life he lived in the woods above the vineyards of Central New York. Young Jim Vining loved Silky too, even after he learned that she was carrying another man's baby. But for Jim love and life were a question of marriage and settling down to make a home, and of taming and restoring the land. As for Silky, the smoldering violence of Holly's nature was answered by something fierce and wild in hers, but it was Jim Vining, she knew, to whom the future belonged. And when Holley's violence flared out in a single, savage, unthinking act, her decision was made. But as she accepted a world of custom and law, she watched it close in on Holley and destroy him."