With this new novel Russell Banks takes a sharp turn into new territory. Unfortunately, while the novel marks a different course for the writer, readers conversant in classic Hollywood films from the 1930s and '40s, as well as the novels of Ernest Hemingway will be forgiven an ever-growing sense of deja vu with each passing page.

		"THE RESERVE" By Russell Banks Harper ($24.95)

The reserve of the title is the Tamarack Wilderness Reserve, an exclusive summer playground for the wealthy and glamorous in the Adirondack Mountains, where famed artist and communist sympathizer Jordan Groves finds himself locked into an irrevocable collision course with the beautiful heiress Vanessa Cole.

Groves, who Banks admits is based largely on artist Rockwell Kent, is every bit the Hemingway-esque hero. He's dashing and handsome, a man of action who flies his own seaplane and has built a home near the reserve.

Despite having a wife and two small children, Groves is self-contained and devoid of self-awareness. He is able simply to sidestep the glaring disconnect between his politics and the fact that his success is due to the very rich clientele who purchase his artwork.

The irony of his position is easily located in his most prized possession, the plane he uses to fly high above the upper-crust denizens of the reserve. This symbol of his personal freedom from that class-bound, capitalist society is only his as a gift from that same society.

What Groves mistakenly identifies as a sort of escape hatch is in reality a very short leash.

And this is something understood very clearly by Vanessa, whose seduction of him is intertwined with her need to use the plane.

The unexpected death of Vanessa's father on July 4, 1936, at a celebration at their family camp in the reserve precipitates a deep psychological break from which she will seek respite in Groves' arms, and which will, in the end, lead to the spilling of innocent blood.

After her father's death, her mother hastily makes arrangements to commit her to a European mental hospital and disown her.

Vanessa's desperation and fear lead her to kidnap her mother as well as manipulate Groves and a solicitous camp guide into becoming accomplices.

Everything quickly spins out of control and darker crimes are committed as Vanessa discovers old family secrets and confronts her own childhood victimization.

Banks lets his tale unfold leisurely in a prose so refined it's almost completely scoured of depth and true emotion. Unlike in his previous books, such as "Affliction" and "The Sweet Hereafter," Banks skates along the surfaces of his characters rather than plumbing their depths. "The Reserve" is all Hollywood by way of Hemingway. Think Bogart and Bacall in "To Have and Have Not."

At its best, and I would suggest this is wholly tonal, the novel works as an homage to the popular culture of the 1930s and '40s, a candy-sweet pop confection that warmly recalls a bygone era.

However, at its worst, as witnessed in the generic characters drawn in quick strokes and the tritely stock situations, "The Reserve" is workmanlike and mercenary, reading as little more than a padded screenplay.

Perhaps that's an unfair comment. This is, after all, Banks' 15th novel, two of which were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and if the man wants to indulge himself in a little lightweight entertainment, who's to say he is in the wrong?

"The Reserve" will make for very fine beach reading this summer and might bring Banks's deeper, more difficult work to a whole new audience. I would ask only that first-time Banks readers should explore his body of work more deeply. There is much, much more to the work of Russell Banks than is on display in "The Reserve."