The borrower : a novel

 by Rebecca Makkai. *Starred Review* Lucy, a 26-year-old children's librarian, has a favorite patron, a bright, book-loving 10-year-old named Ian. The trouble is, the boy's fundamentalist mother insists he read only books with the breath of God in them. When the parents enroll their son in a behavior-modification program designed to cure him of his nascent homosexuality, the boy runs away, and Lucy decides she must help. Borrowing the boy, Lucy takes Ian two fugitives now on the road. But who is really running away? Is it Ian or is it Lucy, replicating the experience of her emigre parents, who, years before, had run away from their Russian homeland? And is America, as a friend of Lucy's family claims, truly a nation of runaways but with no place left to run? Time (and considerable driving in Lucy's ancient car) may tell. An accomplished short story writer, Makkai has written a splendid first novel that cleverly weaves telling references to children's books into her whimsically patchwork plot. Larger-than-life characters and an element of the picaresque add to the book's delights. Best of all, however, is Lucy's absolutely unshakable faith in the power of books to save. From her lips, readers, to God's ear. --Booklist (Check Catalog)