`Waxwings' men try to strike roots.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: Charles Matthews

"Waxwings" by Jonathan Raban; Pantheon ($24)

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Jonathan Raban's "Waxwings" is a bittersweet comic novel about people adrift in the uncertain realities of a time and a place _ Seattle in 1999, just as fissures began to show in the dot-com economy.

Tom Janeway, born in Hungary but raised in England, teaches at the University of Washington and does commentaries for "All Things Considered." He and his wife, Beth, a "content provider" for a Web site, have a precocious 4-year-old son and a somewhat decrepit old house.

But then Beth moves out, into a condo nearer to the job that is beginning to consume ...