"The Borrower" by Rebecca Makkai

The Reader's Garden group discussed The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai at their May meeting.  The setting is a library much like our own and we are excited to be welcoming Rebecca to our library on June 12, 2012 at 6:30 p.m.  All are welcome to come and meet this new author from Chicago.


Rebecca has a lifelong fondness for libraries.  She said as a child she would "walk a block to the library with her classmates.  The fact that first memories of the children's section are also my first memories of unsupervised freedom certainly has colored my lifelong relationship with libraries, not to mention this novel.  That one was a small and cozy library (which I nevertheless firmly believed to be haunted).  But as an adult I prefer libraries that are ancient and vast and storied.  The main branch of the New York Public Library is perhaps my favorite...and I was married in the Peabody Library in Baltimore, an old-fashioned model if ever there was one.  I think I seek out that sense of hauntedness to match the feeling of mystery I once associated with my own first library: the hush, the possibility, the anonymity". 



The protagonist in The Borrower, Lucy Hall, goes to work as a children's librarian in a small town after college graduation. At twenty-six she is already settling into the life of a "simple maiden lady librarian".  Then, things change as Lucy's favorite young patron runs away from home and Lucy makes an impulsive decision that will forever change the way both see themselves, the world and the stories they love.


The book received mixed reviews and only three club members finished it which was disappointing.  One member thought the character of Lucy was not strong and didn't think it was realistic that Lucy would get caught up in the events that occur.  Another member felt the story had great characters, it was entertaining and relevant to today and therefore an excellent choice for discussion. The readers all had several answers as to "who is 'the borrower' in the novel?". 


Please help us give a warm welcome to author and library lover Rebecca Makkai on Tuesday, June 12, 2012 at 6:30 p.m.

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