On the eighth day, the hottest of July, the old Hungarian couple returned from Cleveland and stood staring at the yellow tape, suitcases by their sides, taxi waiting to be paid. Podcast: The Writer’s Voice Listen to Rebecca Makkai read The Plaza.

“That’s really the way to go,” people murmured to their TVs. Despite the earnest reporters’ enunciation of “deadliest” and “perfect storm,” the public was not as horrified as it pretended. There had been no calls to 911, no bodies sprawled halfway to the door-just the mailman’s cry for help the next morning after three poisonous minutes at the lobby mailboxes. All twelve of them, that meant, died in their sleep. The only survivor died in the hospital, never having woken. Rebecca Makkai is the author of the novels I Have Some Questions for You, The Great Believers, The Hundred-Year House, and The Borrower, and the story collection Music for Wartime.

After the fire trucks and news trucks and gawkers had dispersed, after one body had been sirened away and eleven more secreted out under sheets, the building sat empty for a week. The odd pair embarks on a crazy road trip from Missouri to Vermont, with ferrets, an inconvenient boyfriend, and upsetting family history thrown in their path.Deep in the basement and then through the walls and floors of the building, gas had poured, scentless, at two a.m. 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. Lucy Hull, a young children's librarian in Hannibal, Missouri, finds herself both a kidnapper and kidnapped when her favorite patron, ten- year-old Ian Drake, runs away from home. Rebecca Makkai’s The Borrower is full of books, libraries, cross-country hijinks, accidental parenting, love gone wrong and friendships gone right. Lucy 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.ĭesperate to save him from Pastor Bob and the Drakes, Lucy allows herself to be hijacked by Ian. In this delightful, funny, and moving first novel, a librarian and a young boy obsessed with reading take to the road. 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 antigay classes with celebrity Pastor Bob. Lucy Hull, a young children's librarian in Hannibal, Missouri, finds herself both a kidnapper and kidnapped when her favorite patron, 10-year-old Ian Drake, runs away from home. In this delightful, funny, and moving first novel, a librarian and a young boy obsessed with reading take to the road. The Borrower: A Novel Kindle Edition by Rebecca Makkai (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 842 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle 13.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook 0.00 Free with your Audible trial Hardcover 14.09 14 Used from 10.11 1 New from 29.99 3 Collectible from 35.

The borrower by rebecca makkai