From its earliest days as a tiny settlement near the epic Revolutionary War battlefield, to its current status as a prime tourist attraction, Saratoga has boasted a colorful collection of characters. In Saratoga Lives, Michael Hare takes a unique approach to let the reader see those inner lives. Speaking on four days spanning two centuries, real and imagined characters reveal their secrets, dreams, prejudices, aspirations, hatreds and passions. Here is the repressed wife of the early settler, longing for escape; here is the Hotel magnate, crushing anyone blocking his acquisition of the Country's largest hotel in the Victorian age; here is the depression-era casino kingpin and his sharp girlfriend; here is the contemporary young mother, joyfully cavorting through Saratoga with her young daughter. Speaking in colloquial free verse, these and hundreds of other characters share their Saratoga Lives, filled with humor, wit, pathos and desire.