“This account of the life and death of James Van Valken of New York, with its disturbing new revelations about him and his family, relies on sources of information unavailable until recently. It combines documentary evidence with the eyewitness testimony of contemporaries: the distinguished and scholarly, but also the unassuming—including many who knew him personally. Some of these were James’s neighbors on the west shore of the Hudson: citizens of Nyack and Haverstraw, Stony Point and Valkenwyck Forge. They were friends, fellow-citizens— in some instances, his employees. 

“Not all count themselves his admirers; still fewer, admirers of the Van Valken family in general. There are those who would not have shaken the hand of any member of that family, or even suffered to be in the same room with a person of that name. If the Van Valkens have been dogged by misfortune, many will judge their hardships well-deserved. Others, however, declare themselves their adherents and admirers. All of them have had their say.”