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Thomas Janeway is a British novelist and professor of literature at the University of Washington whose life is coming apart in his adopted home. He deeply loves his four-year-old son, Finn, but his wife, Beth, is caught up in the dot-com explosion, and the couple has grown apart. As Seattle erupts in the WTO riots and terrorist plots, Janeway's life crumbles around him. His wife leaves him, his house becomes a shambles of half-completed reconstruction, and his son is caught fighting in school. When he becomes a "person of interest" in the abduction and possible murder of a local girl, he is put on leave with pay from the university. Yet, Raban does not let Janeway--or any of his characters--wallow in self-pity. They all try to move forward with life, and even Janeway "the suspect" finds sympathetic allies in surprising places.
At one point in the novel, Janeway lectures his students on the "generosity" of V.S. Pritchett, saying that the writer believed "in a general redistribution of verbal wealth, in taking good lines from the haves, and giving them to the have-nots." This "liberal realism" also characterizes Raban's work. Raban treats all of his characters, from Janeway to Finn, with patience and balance. He fully inhabits each and tells fragments of the story from the perspective of Beth, Tom, Finn, and even Tom's illegal-immigrant contractor, Chick. One narrative infuses another, lending the novel a Dickensian universality. Together the disparate voices perfectly capture the particulars of a place, Seattle, at a unique moment in American history. --Patrick O'Kelley
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. New York: Pantheon [2003]. First edition. First printing. Hardbound. New! Very fine/very fine in all respects, a pristine unread copy, never opened except for signing. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page (name only). Comes with protective mylar dust jacket cover. Signed-Fiction. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # CASE2-703
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. IMMACULATE COPY, NEW & UNREAD, of the brilliant Pantheon edition of this fine novel, which was long listed for the BOOKER. Always an elegant and pleasing writer, this particular issue is wholly superior to the British issue. Untrimmed leading edge to the text block, two colour cloth binding, perfect typography on an acid free paper; all these factors deliver this fine novel into the hands of a discerning collector. New first printing of the first edition, carefully stored in a low light book room from the publishing day. Language: eng Language: eng 0.0 Language: eng 0.0 Language: eng 0.0 Language: eng. Seller Inventory # ABE-2138014282