KEY POINTS:
From the beginning of this novel the reader is assigned the role of observer. It starts with an apparent terror attack in a more militarised but distressingly familiar Seattle, followed by a horrific car accident witnessed by freelance journalist Lucy Bengstrom.
The one-two hit leaves the reader feeling a little rattled - similar to the post-adrenalin shakes you'd experience watching such things in real life. It's a sensation that never really leaves as you follow Lucy and her interconnecting relationships with her pre-adolescent daughter Alida, and gay best friend Tad. Beyond them are enigmatic author August Vanags, his wife, and Lucy's nastily comical landlord. All these characters shift around each other uneasily, with the reader alone privy to their secret thoughts and impulses.
The result is a creepy examination of today's suspicious post 9/11 world. It is a place in which everybody is increasingly visible and monitored and Raban seems to be making the point that, for all that, it's impossible to "see" the secret lives of others.
Though there is little forward plot motion, there is a constant sense of foreboding, and in the end, an unsettling finish. Raban is not one to make things easy. He wants readers to think and work things out for themselves. The result is a book that is an interesting but sometimes frustrating examination of this new Cold War.
Macmillan, $27.99
- Detours, HoS
