Rebecca Makkai’s The Borrower is full of books, libraries, cross-country hijinks, accidental parenting, love gone wrong and friendships gone right. Makkai will have you cheering for her librarian heroine, who has all the history and darkness of a Russian novel in her veins, mixed with the humor and spirit of Bridget Jones. A fun, moving, and delightful read.- Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief
Lucy Hull, a young children’s librarian in Hannibal, Missouri, finds herself both kidnapper and kidnapped when her favorite patron, ten-year-old Ian Drake, runs away from home. The precocious Ian is addicted to reading, but needs Lucy’s help to smuggle books past his overbearing mother, who has enrolled Ian in weekly anti-gay classes.
Lucy, a rebel at heart beneath her librarian’s exterior, stumbles into a moral dilemma when she finds Ian camped out in the library after hours with a knapsack of provisions and an escape plan. Desperate to save him from the Drakes, Lucy allows herself to be hijacked by Ian. The odd pair embarks on an improvised road trip from Missouri to Vermont, with ferrets and an inconvenient boyfriend thrown in their path. Along the way, Lucy struggles to make peace with her Russian immigrant father and his fugitive past, and is forced to use his shady connections to escape discovery.
Flavorwire Names The Borrower a top debut of 2011 More Praise for The Borrower →
Flavorwire named The Borrower one of the top ten debuts of 2011, saying it is “filled with lovely but unsentimental writing — something of a feat considering the material.” Read the full writeup here!
Heinemann Windmill/Random House (UK)
Piemme (Italy)
Editions Gallimard (France)
Ullstein (Germany)
A. W. Bruna Uitgevers (Netherlands)
Edições ASA (Portugal)
