THE SEAPLANE ON FINAL APPROACH

Rukeyser’s debut is a strange, dreamlike coming-of-age story set in coastal Alaska.

Mira, the 18-year-old narrator, is, oddly, obsessed with the concept of “sleaze”: defining it and identifying it. She spends a summer working as a baker at Lavender Island Wilderness Lodge, a homestead that functions as a sort of bed-and-breakfast for international tourists. She passes time fantasizing about her aunt’s stepson, Ed, and observing the strange social dynamics that result from the eclectic coterie of personalities working at the homestead, which include a middle-aged married couple, two other teen girls, and a brooding addict. While she is obsessed with sleaze and with her imagined future with Ed, Mira is largely detached from her actual surroundings, participating mostly as an observer—until the drama among her colleagues becomes impossible to ignore. The detached perspective through which we experience this unfolding narrative adds to its rarified, dreamy quality. With a delicate touch, the story invites rumination on themes of obsession and fixation, the dichotomous beauty and eeriness of an isolated landscape, and the struggle of locating oneself within a new environment. It is a testament to the power and subtlety of Rukeyser’s writing that the novel’s violent climax, though preceded largely by a sense of quietude throughout, does not feel surprising or out of place; it is simply the result of the building social tensions and sense of desperation among the group and of a particular landscape whose compelling beauty—the author shows us—conceals dangerous potential. The obviously talented Rukeyser has crafted a vividly beautiful and odd world; the specificity of Lavender Island propels the story here as much as the characters and the plot, and that is thanks to her descriptive and imagistic prose.

This darkly compelling novel promises more interesting writing to come from Rukeyser.