Product Description
Xanna Daniels, teenaged Wiccan witch and self-imposed social outcast on the close-knit island of Martha's Vineyard, MA, has just deferred her freshman year at Harvard. Instead, she's going to run away to Seattle with her long-time summer crush -- and, she hopes, lose her virginity to him.
Life in Seattle turns out nothing like she'd imagined. Manipulated and abandoned by the clique of graphic artists who initially take her in, Xanna finds herself on the streets of the city's University District amongst the rave kids and teenage addicts. Xanna is befriended by and moves into the subsidized apartment of Jules Reardon, a foul-mouthed teen mother and recovering heroin addict. Everywhere is temptation, sexual and otherwise. But by accident or fate Xanna has arrived in Seattle with her virtue intact, and decides to keep it that way: "My virginity is my power," she tells herself repeatedly.
On the night of her 18th birthday, Xanna meets Michael Dobyns, a 24-year-old law student who moonlights as a cab driver. Dobyns, as he calls himself, is a bombastic, chain-smoking Goth who tries to convince Xanna that he's a reincarnation of the Egyptian God Osiris, and that Xanna herself is the Egyptian goddess Isis, the "Celestial Virgin." Dobyns may or may not have paranormal powers; may or may not have escaped from an abusive, football-playing childhood in rural Florida; and may or may not shoplift his expensive clothes and music. Xanna thinks he's a freak, but she and Dobyns nevertheless begin hanging out together nightly, usually in his cab or, after work, at some of Seattle's more surreal landmarks. Xanna, meanwhile, cuts off communication with her parents.
In Xanna's dream-like vision of Seattle, "the city of lost children," her alien environment magnifies the milestones of early adulthood. Xanna gets her first real paying job, fails horribly with a haircoloring experiment, discovers that hallucinogens aren't fun, gets a vibrator as a gift -- and learns more than she ever wanted about poverty, self-reliance, and the unexpected ways the "magick" she longs for manifests itself in the visible world.
Life in Seattle turns out nothing like she'd imagined. Manipulated and abandoned by the clique of graphic artists who initially take her in, Xanna finds herself on the streets of the city's University District amongst the rave kids and teenage addicts. Xanna is befriended by and moves into the subsidized apartment of Jules Reardon, a foul-mouthed teen mother and recovering heroin addict. Everywhere is temptation, sexual and otherwise. But by accident or fate Xanna has arrived in Seattle with her virtue intact, and decides to keep it that way: "My virginity is my power," she tells herself repeatedly.
On the night of her 18th birthday, Xanna meets Michael Dobyns, a 24-year-old law student who moonlights as a cab driver. Dobyns, as he calls himself, is a bombastic, chain-smoking Goth who tries to convince Xanna that he's a reincarnation of the Egyptian God Osiris, and that Xanna herself is the Egyptian goddess Isis, the "Celestial Virgin." Dobyns may or may not have paranormal powers; may or may not have escaped from an abusive, football-playing childhood in rural Florida; and may or may not shoplift his expensive clothes and music. Xanna thinks he's a freak, but she and Dobyns nevertheless begin hanging out together nightly, usually in his cab or, after work, at some of Seattle's more surreal landmarks. Xanna, meanwhile, cuts off communication with her parents.
In Xanna's dream-like vision of Seattle, "the city of lost children," her alien environment magnifies the milestones of early adulthood. Xanna gets her first real paying job, fails horribly with a haircoloring experiment, discovers that hallucinogens aren't fun, gets a vibrator as a gift -- and learns more than she ever wanted about poverty, self-reliance, and the unexpected ways the "magick" she longs for manifests itself in the visible world.
