Pollepel Island - in Literature

In Literature

Dark fantasy author Caitlín R. Kiernan uses Bannerman's Castle and Pollepel Island as the setting for a number of the stories in her collection, Tales of Pain and Wonder (2000), including "Estate," "The Last Child of Lir," and "Salammbô." In these stories, the castle was constructed by a fictional industrialist named Silas Desvernine and is referred to simply as "Silas' Castle."

"Bannerman Castle" by authors Barbara Gottlock and Thom Johnson was released through Arcadia Press in August 2006. The book contains almost 200 vintage photographs, and the text documents the island's growth and decline. Proceeds from the book go the Bannerman Castle Trust in its ongoing efforts to preserve and improve the island's structures. For ordering information, contact the Bannerman Castle Trust.

Pollepel Island is a murder scene in Linda Fairstein's murder mystery Killer HeatKiller Heat. Doubleday, 2008> and the site of a series of abductions in Kirsten Miller's book Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City.

In Philip Kerr's The Day of the Djinn Warriors (2004), Bannerman's Island appears in the itinerary of the Djinn Twins.

The castle is visited and described in depth in William Least Heat-Moon's travel log titled River Horse: A Voyage Across America.

Bannerman's Castle (called the Hammer Armory here) was the site of clandestine human experimentation by the villainous Talia al Ghul and Dr. Creighton Kendall in issues #145 (published August 2008) and #146 (September 2008) of the (defunct) Nightwing ongoing series from DC Comics (in a story arc titled "Freefall," written by Peter J. Tomasi).

Part of Lev Grossman's The Magicians (2009) is set in a wizardry college in upstate New York, along the Hudson River. The school is an amalgam of Bannerman's Castle and Olana.

In Jill Churchill's book Anything Goes, there is mention of Bannerman Castle/Pollepel Island throughout the story. It is a murder mystery set in early 1930s.