Waxwings

by JonathanRaban (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $31.76

  The first of a proposed series of three novels set in the Pacific North-WestAn unsettling, always surprising, funny, and moving novel of manners, money, and morals, Waxwings is set in Seattle at the turn of the millennium, when the high-tech Gold Rush threatens to overwhelm the actual world with its myriad virtual alternatives. In a city where everyone appears to come from somewhere else, and where anyone holding stock options expects to become someone else, the conflicting desires of everyday life are exaggerated beyond reckoning.Two hopeful new immigrants are drawn to Seattle by more traditional versions of the American Dream. For Tom Janeway - a Hungarian-born Englishman most at home with books - it is the family he thought he'd never have. For an illegal alien-Chick, as he comes to call himself not long after escaping a cargo container - it is the land of opportunity he'd imagined back in Fujian province. Waxwings is a story about two men, each searching for a place they can call their own, a space where they can be themselves.

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.46

  At the turn of the millennium, two immigrants are drawn to the United States by their own versions of the American Dream. For Tom Janeway - a Hungarian-born English intellectual most at home with his books - it's the family he thought he'd never have. For Chick - an illegal alien newly escaped from a cargo container - it's the land of plenty he imagined back in China. But as the stock market hits a new high, anti-globalist riots break out in the streets, a terrorist is arrested and a child disappears, the two men's dreams collide in a way neither could have anticipated. Unjustly accused of a horrific crime, estranged from his wife and his beloved young son, Tom's life is rapidly unravelling. Chick, meanwhile, has a burgeoning business by day but no safe place to lay his bed at night. For both, the New World proves surprisingly full of old ways. Waxwings is a masterwork. Exquisitely written, moving, funny and hugely entertaining, it brilliantly captures the landscape and life of contemporary America, and it confirms Jonathan Raban as one of our very finest writers.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $3.46

  The first of a series of three novels set in the Pacific North-West, Waxwings is a masterpiece In Seattle at the turn of the millennium, two hopeful new immigrants are drawn to Seattle by their own different versions of the American Dream. For Tom Janeway - a Hungarian-born Englishman most at home with books - it is the chance for family he thought he'd never have. For an illegal alien - Chick, as he comes to call himself not long after escaping a cargo container - it is a land of opportunity that is his for the taking. With the local economy in flux, mutual need soon brings enterprising Chick together with the distracted professor, and each man finds himself more dependent on the other than he could ever have expected. The people around them are also in flux, busily charting imaginary futures that are baffling and obscure to friends and family, or exclude them altogether, until Tom's life suddenly tailspins into American tragedy, or American farce. Moving from the sheetrock cubicles of an Internet start-up to fund-raising dinners in lakeside mansions, from brand-new condos in Belltown to the tents of the homeless, from businessmen's clubs to police stations and the creaking timber