THE FOLLOWING NOVELS span three centuries, and for subject, voice and readership, they are worlds apart. But one thing they have in common: they, or a chunk of them, are in the Adirondacks and they put the woods to use. For all the micro-settings in these books (farm, fort, motor court, Great Camp, lake, summer camp or sanatorium), it is the wilderness around that raises hopes of some fresh start. Maybe it’s a romance, good health, an abolitionist’s subsistence farm on the frontier. It doesn’t matter. It will not take. The wilderness has ideas of its own. The people in these books suppose the Adirondacks’ distance from the cares and claims of daily life promises a respite, an escape. But the world pursues them anyway. And it always, always catches…