Those who’ve been around the Tri-Lakes long enough can remember the gilded moments of the 1980 Winter Olympics: The elegant opening ceremonies, more suited to their setting than today’s made-for-TV extravaganzas; speed skater Eric Heiden’s seemingly daily accumulation of gold medals; and most of all, the flag-draped “Do you believe in miracles?” U.S. victory over the Soviet Union in men’s ice hockey, at a time when the Cold War wasn’t just a chilly game on a skating rink in the Adirondacks.

But there was a dark side to those Olympics, too — behind-the-scenes squabbling, cost overruns, lack of snow (a precursor of things to come?), bus chaos, crowds, the unfulfilled promises of economic Nirvana. The culture clash between down-to-earth natives and visitors in fur coats.

It’s the latter conflict that Timothy Strong probes in his new novel, “Tourist” (Black Rose Writing, 2023). Strong, also the owner of the one-of-its-kind Birch Bark Bookstore in the northwest hardwood foothills near Parishville, follows his “Whippoorwill Chronicles” (also Black Rose, 2020) with a similar tale of struggles against mental illness and its stigma, of young adults striving to figure themselves out, of how to keep relationships stable, of how to overcome the seeming impossibility of fitting into one’s environment or of going on with life.

No wonder his publisher is named Black Rose.

In “Tourist,” Jake Mason has recently returned from a second stint at what he labels “the nuthouse” in Ogdensburg. An occasionally employed 26-year-old odd-jobber, he lives in a beat-up trailer on his parents’ lot in “Hollywood,” Strong’s imaginary and ironic name for the part of Lake Placid where there are no stone-wall post-and-beam mansions with a Mercedes in the perfect driveway two or three weekends a year.

What has driven Jake over the edge? While working construction on a condo complex being built for the expected Olympic throngs, he watches, unable to avert his horrified eyes, as his “forever” best friend, Barney, plunges five stories to his death. The trauma paralyzes Jake. From that moment on, he sees everything through the lens of that searing memory, to the degree that he can barely cope with daily life and its demands. He resents the Olympics and all their baggage. He trusts no one; he sees little future. He can’t figure out how to relate to his parents, employers or his high school girlfriend, with whom he reunites. About the only thing he “gets” is beer.

How he works past that searing scenario is the crux of the story, which concludes in sync with the resolution of the aforementioned famous hockey game. Whether Jake comes out of his tunnel or doubles back into darkness keeps the reader turning pages.

As with most books from small houses with too little staff, this one has its flaws. Punctuation appears where it shouldn’t and not where it should. A character named Jason suddenly becomes Amos. Compound sentences abound; “and” is the most frequent word in the book. Dialogue (which to be fair is extremely hard to write convincingly) seems stiff at times; everyone sounds the same.

But so what? All that is impotent chinks in the armor of a good story about how a troubled young man handles misfortune against a background that makes him feel like a tourist in his own hometown.