The Borrower: A Novel

by Rebecca Makkai

The first novel from the acclaimed author of The Great Believers

"Rarely is a first novel as smart and engaging and learned and funny and moving as The Borrower." —Richard Russo, author of Pulitzer Prize–winning Empire Falls

Lucy Hull, a 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. Ian needs Lucy’s help to smuggle books past his overbearing mother, who has enrolled Ian in weekly antigay classes. Desperate to save him from the Drakes, Lucy allows herself to be hijacked by Ian when she finds him camped out in the library after hours, and the odd pair embarks on a crazy road trip. But is it just Ian who is running away? And should Lucy be trying to save a boy from his own parents?

• ISBN10: 0143120956
• ISBN13: 9780143120957
• Publish Date: 29 May 2012 (first published 1 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Penguin USA
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 352
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780143120957

Reviews

[kimbacaffeinate]

DNF. Struggling to contect and understand librarian. Not for me. Narration was well done.

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

The Borrower, featuring a children’s librarian protagonist and alluding to a number of children’s classics, seems like the perfect read for book lovers. The story, however, is not particularly about books. In fact, it is to a large degree about Lucy’s issues with the anti-gay class in which Ian has been enrolled and her issues with the types of people who run such classes. She is occasionally rather preachy about it, and it does not make for a particularly fascinating plot. It also does not do the author favors in gaining an audience. Most readers will either be on the side Lucy insults, and they will be offended by the book, or they will agree with Lucy, and therefore have no need to read a couple hundred pages of her lectures.

The topic is just not overly engaging from any angle, and Lucy is not particularly tactful. She is very clear about the point that she is not a moral relativist by any means. She is closer to a moral absolutist who thinks Christianity is absolutely wrong. Fair enough. She is allowed to hold such an opinion, but one could hope she would a little more polite about it. She has a lot of insults for Ian’s family’s religion (again, fair enough, since most people, even those who oppose gay marriage, are willing to admit anti-gay classes are not helpful or effective), and she also has a lot of contempt for Catholicism. The problem here is that her disgust is somewhat uninformed. She laments that, at one point, she and Ian have ended up visiting a Catholic church. She first panics that the priest and all Catholics are violently anti-gay and will harm Ian on the spot, and then worries that the priest will force Ian into a confessional to spill his soul, and once he admits that Lucy has “kidnapped” him, the police will arrive. Classifying all Catholics as hateful is unfair. Believing priests force people—particularly non-Catholic people—into the sacrament of Reconciliation, is ridiculous. Basically, Lucy is an ignorant, somewhat prejudiced character herself, which is certainly allowed (Who expects literature to feature only likeable, intelligent characters?), but her personality will not be a draw for many readers, and could actually be offensive.

Otherwise, the text is creative, but Makkai’s writing gives the distinct impression of one who is trying very hard to sound literary and clever. The story might have benefited from a more straightforward style. The book also has a rather modern philosophy, in some conclusions about how life is not very happy and no one can really have adventures or be a hero or do much of anything worth doing. It is a hard sell to those readers who are idealists or who read books for some form of escapism. Yet The Borrower does have one big, positive belief about books, for which some of its other pessimism might be forgiven:

"But books, on the other hand: I do still believe that books can save you.

"I believed that Ian Drake would get his books, as surely as any addict will get his drug. He would bribe his babysitter, he’d sneak out of the house at night and smash the library window. He’d sell his own guinea pig for book money. He would read under his tented comforter with a penlight. He’d hollow out his mattress and fill it with paperbacks. They could lock him in the house, but they could never convince him that the world wasn’t a bigger place than that. They’d wonder why they couldn’t break him. They’d wonder why he smiled when they sent him to his room."

The Borrower, I am sure, does have an audience, but the audience simply does not include me. The plot was a little slow, the message a little forced, and the conclusions a little depressing. I wanted a book that was more about books and got one about the evils of certain Christian groups and Lucy Hull’s personal problems. Perhaps readers who have different expectations will appreciate the book more.

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

Rebecca Makkai's novel was told from the point of view of an librarian -- someone who loves books, loves her job and her patrons. and there are book references on every page. Sounds like a book lover's dream right? Unfortunately, no.

Ian Drake is a ten year old patron of the library whose parents have enrolled him in anti-gay classes. Lucy Hull is a librarian at said library. After discovering Ian early one morning camped out at the library takes it upon herself to "go for a drive" with Ian after passing judgement on the Drake's parenting skills.

Once Lucy drove out of Hannibal's city limits the book began to fall apart. Lucy criss-crosses all over the U.S. letting Ian be the entertainment director. After making a get-away to Chicago to visit her parents pulling Ian off as a child of a former high school friend who attempted suicide. Her parents seem to buy this lukewarm lie and her father sends her off to the Pennsylvania to deliver a package to an old friend.

This is when it really gets weird. After a successful drop off and the use of ferret shampoo they continue on with the pointless exponentiation, because now Lucy realizes after an Amber Alert that she is a wanted woman for kidnapping. After what seems like hundreds of pages exclusively dedicated to fast food joints, Ian's inhaler and "the license plate game" we wind up in Vermont, just outside the Canada border. In Vermont, they visit the grave of Ian's made up relative and some kind of boney finger relic at a church (this could be compared to the bagel Mother Teresa). It is after this and becoming paranoid of a car following them (which is very Lolita/Humbert Humbert with out the pedophilia) that it is decided that Ian should go home via the Greyhound. Unfortunately, Lucy is now a suspect in a kidnapping and can never return to Hannibal Missouri.

The Borrower had so much potential but just didn't live up to the book jacket. I almost felt that the author was seeing just how obscure she could make it and fell into a black hole that she couldn't come out of. Rebecca Makkai kind of ties it up well with a "I'll never let go Jack, I'll never let go" ending but just not enough to make up for past mistakes.