Waxwings Book

I ran into Waxwings by pure blazing chance while wandering through the library. Raban is a lovely writer, and Waxwings is an empathetically keen commentary on the teetering height of the dot-com era and on the stumbling longings of the human heart.

Waxwings takes place in Seattle, where the high-tech population pushes hard against the boundaries of the Northwest wilderness, oblivious to the feral forces displaced. (My sister in nearby Spokane tells of a suburban neighbor who strolled out to fetch the mail, only to discover a hungry-eyed cougar crouched on her front porch, patiently looking out for the next chubby toddler on a slow-movin' trike to wobble down the sidewalk. This is exactly the frisson Raban catches.) Through stories of a perilously self-absorbed NPR commentator and a desperately resourceful illegal Chinese immigrant, Raban paints a moment in Seattle's history that is compelling from both a cultural and personal perspective. One of Raban's gifts is his ability to walk us along with his characters through understandably chance circumstances. When unforeseen consequences avalanche into the narrative trail, we are as startlingly appalled as his characters. Raban writes with humor, moments of ravishing insight, and a gentleness that holds me as much as his unexpected twists of plot and sympathetically drawn characters. I was sorry I had not found this book when it was written, while I was still coming to terms with the post 9-11 sea change. In the back of my mind, I kept waiting for the raison d'être for the "Waxwings" title to appear. When it did, the revelation left me stunned with admiration for this writer's talents.

I'll be reading more of Raban.