FICTION REVIEW: "The Borrower"

Forget Dr. Sears and T. Berry Brazelton; the real experts on child rearing are the judgmental onlookers who know exactly how they would quiet this airplane screamer or that restaurant mess-maker. Or, in the case of Lucy Hull, heroine of "The Borrower," how they would build self-esteem in a bookish little boy with an anorexic, evangelical, homophobic mother.

What makes Lucy different from the rest of us pediatric behavior know-it-alls is that she decides to stop judging from afar and jumps into the boy's situation: passively first, with subversive-to-his-mother reading recommendations; then aggressively, with a poorly planned and worse-executed escape flight.

"The Borrower" is the first novel from seasoned short-story writer Rebecca Makkai and, unfortunately, it feels like a short story that was stretched beyond its comfort. It sports an intriguing premise, a casually snappy and conversational tone, and a likable assurance that reading can be a balm to all wounds. But Lucy, whose rash act of child abduction is the centerpiece of the novel, never materializes as a believable character acting in understandable ways — even within the realm of a "what if" scenario. As a result, that intriguing premise ultimately recedes into some false-feeling plot developments on an outrageous road trip to nowhere.

When we meet Lucy, she's a sullen children's librarian in the random location of Hannibal, Mo. The daughter of a mobbed-up Russian immigrant, Lucy is aimless and snarky, existing on cheap relationships and emotional lethargy. Ten-year-old Ian is a regular visitor to the library, and when Lucy meets his mother she quickly sums up the woman thusly: "She had abruptly flipped from the Southern belle and was now putting on the extremely businesslike air of those perfectionist women who'd only worked in the professional world for two or three years before stopping to have children and were now terrified of not being taken seriously." Ouch.

When Lucy learns Ian's parents have picked up on the vaguely gay flavor of the boy's persona and sent him to an evangelical pastor's anti-gay program, she makes a rash decision to help him run away. It's a disastrous choice, of course, and Lucy comes to see her impulse to flee authorities is more a result of her Russian heritage than a burning desire to liberate a captive soul.

Even abused children are torn by their parental bonds, so Ian's rather blasé attitude toward running away doesn't ring true. And the humanity of Ian's parents is never explored — they are but paint-by-number evangelical caricatures. The opportunity for a spectacular climax examining the myriad forces at play when an ostensibly loving family wrongs a child so badly is squandered here, as author Makkai opts instead to let the adventure sputter, not flame, out. Alas, it is as if Makkai herself, and not just her lead character, has judged these parents from afar.

Cherie Parker is a book critic in Washington, D.C.