"The Borrower" by Rebecca Makkai

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This is a surprising little book, and an excellent first novel. Stop me if you've heard this one before: a young, mid-twenty something children's librarian meets a young boy, in small town America. Librarian meets boy's evangelical family, discovers that said family will only allow boy to read so-called "holy books"-- and later finds that the boy's family's idea of salvation for their child is something far more sinister. 

There is so much to love about this book. 

At points, the narrative simply soars-- Makkai's librarian, Lucy's, interaction with the boy, Ian, and his family are written with a starkly appealing, simple realism, and laced with a wicked sense of black humor. Toward the middle of the novel, however, when the big event happens, I wasn't initially sold. But as I continued reading, I found Makkai's writing to be rather genius, and something that resembles a modern (adult? young adult?) fairy tale. The world of "The Borrower" is very much our own-- filled with the oppression of children, the bigots who use extremist religion to justify their hatred and the salvation found in the world of fiction, the history of books. And yet the adventure that salvation takes our characters on is such it seems right out of the world of the children's novel, the fairy tale. And it suits the tale beautifully. 

The final hundred or so pages of this novel are so wonderfully written they deliver an amazingly affecting ending-- one I did not expect. The culmination of our story comes at you seemingly out of nowhere-- or, at least, on a level you do not expect. It has been quite some time since I was so moved by the ending of a novel. There are books you finish, and you know the characters will stay with you, their names never forgotten. Ian Drake is one of them. 

Image:  The Centered Librarian

“Ian once suggested that in addition to the mystery stickers and the sci-fi and animal ones, there should be special stickers for books with happy endings, books with sad endings, books that will trick you into reading the next in the series. 'There should be ones with big teardrops,' he said, 'like for the side of Where the Red Fern Grows. Because otherwise it isn't fair. Like maybe you're accidentally reading it in public, and then everyone will make fun of you for crying.' But what could I affix to the marvelous and perplexing tale of Ian Drake? A little blue sticker with a question mark, maybe. Crossed fingers. A penny in a fountain.”  

I expect great things to continue coming from Rebecca Makkai.