Soft City

Jonathan Raban, author of Passage to Juneau, brings eloquent intellect and wry wit to his exploration of the American scene. Written over the past two decades, roughly the span of Raban's residence in his adopted city of Seattle, these essays delve into what it means, as immigrant, to feel rooted in America. Driving Home charts a course through show more the Pacific Northwest, American history, and current events as witnessed by a keenly observant visitor who is able to glean meanings and patterns that have become invisible to the natives. Raban spends much time on, near, and in water, and his ruminations on sailing and the sea are a welcome thread. Whether the topic is other writers or various painters and explorers, or the patrons of a Montana bar, who have engaged with our mythical and actual landscape, Raban has a visitor s eye for the absurd, and his tone is intimate, never nostalgic, and always fresh. show less