JONATHAN RABAN IS a British writer who now lives in Seattle, among the wharfs and waterways, hills and high-rise apartments in which this book is set. Best known as a travel writer, he has now produced his second novel (the first, Foreign Land, having appeared in 1985), and it is a remarkable work.

Waxwings (the curious title refers to a variety of crested migratory bird which descends in large flocks and can strip a holly tree of its berries in moments), follows the vicissitudes of two immigrants, both of whom arrive in Seattle more or less by accident, in search of their own