REVIEW: Waxwings by Jonathan Raban

TITLE:  Waxwings
AUTHOR: Jonathan Raban
PUBLISHER:      Picador.   (Oct. 2003)
ISBN:   0 330 41961 7          PRICE: A$ 30.00 (paperback)      311 pages

Reviewed by Ann Skea ([EMAIL PROTECTED])

I should say from the start that I am a great fan of Jonathan Raban's writing. 
I have collected his books over the years, have just re-read Badlands for its 
insight into American history and life, and I found Passage to Juneau 
fascinating. But all these books are travel books, closely based on fact. 
Perhaps this is why I was disappointed with Waxwings, which is a novel.

Admittedly, Tom Janeway, the main character in the book, has more than a 
passing resemblance to Jonathan Raban.  But this is fiction and, although it is 
well-written and I enjoyed it in a mild way, I was never as engaged by it as I 
have been with Raban's earlier books. It's just a slice of life. And, as the 
car-sticker says, "shit happens". For Tom, it is like a visitation of Waxwings. 
They appear out of the blue, you grab your binoculars to get a good look at 
them, your kid is unimpressed and just gets on with his life, and the next time 
you look they have gone. And all the berries have been stripped from your tree.

One of Tom's 'waxwings' is an illegal immigrant, 'Chick', who turns up on his 
doorstep and offers to renovate his house for him. It's an offer Tom can't 
refuse, but Chick and his team of Mexican contractors (also illegal immigrants) 
vanish halfway through the project.

Meanwhile, Tom's wife, Beth, decides to buy herself a condo' and move out. Tom 
comes under suspicion in a missing child case. And Finn, his son, is expelled 
from pre-school for non-conformist and unruly behavior. Tom's eight-year idyll 
as a British immigrant (legal) to Seattle unravels almost as quickly as Chick's 
(illegal) fortunes begin to flourish.

Tom is an amiable, self-absorbed, unworldly writer, author of two best-selling 
books and teacher of Victorian Literature and The Writing Programme at a 
Seattle university. His house is a reflection of his own muddled background and 
his unambitious complacency and, as renovations begin then falter, leaving it 
half dismantled, it comes to reflect his life ever more closely. Beth, who 
chooses to move into a light, bright, modern condo, is as modern and bright as 
her new home. She is ambitious and innovative, too, determined to make her mark 
in a new, computer-based, real-estate marketing business. Their separation is 
quite civil and they each deal with it in their own civilized ways. Finn, too, 
seems to take it all in his stride.

All in all, this is a realistic picture of a fragment of life but there is 
little drama. At times, Tom lectures us on Victorian literature and draws some 
amusing parallels, but his life is rather like those books - a bit 
old-fashioned, a bit slow, and not compatible with the fast-moving, commercial 
world of modern Seattle. Raban has written a pleasant and amiable book, and he 
has written it well. No doubt it says something about values in our world and 
in literature. But I was left at the end thinking - "OK, that's life. So 
what?".

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Copyright © Ann Skea 2003
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