Solito

 Solito

By Javier Zamora

This was a hard but fascinating read. It's a memoir that tells the tale of his migration to the United States.
Zamora is born in El Salvador, where he is raised by his grandparents because both of his parents migrated to the US when he was very young. His life in El Salvador actually seems pretty okay; he hints at poverty, but we didn't really see it. Nevertheless, Javier's life is consumed by a dream to be reunited with his parents, with whom he speaks once every two weeks.

At last, his day comes. Javier is 9. He is led north with five other people by a coyote named Don Dago, who disappears from the trip not long after it begins. He has told the group he will meet them after an 18-hour boat ride from Guatemala into Mexico. But he never appears. Yet The Six, as Javier dubs them, continue on their journey, and are shuffled from coyote to coyote, who seem to care for them and follow through on their promises. 

Finally, they reach "la linea" -- the border with the US. The Six join a group of about 50, who are surprised by La Migra just as they are about to reach their destination. Javier is now one of four: a man, Chino, a woman, Patricia, and her daughter, Carla. These three care for Javier as if he is family, and they try again. And again they are caught, this time by a border patrol agent who brings them back to the border, but doesn't put them in a cage, as Javier describes a jail. 

But third luck proves the charm, and Javier eventually does make it to La USA. We learn little about his life there, except that he eventually loses touch with Chino, Patricia, and Carla, and that he had years of therapy to deal with the trauma of his crossing.

The book stirred a lot of emotions. The compassion that Chino and Patricia show Javier is inspiring. They save his life on numerous occasions. But none of the coyotes ever make contact with Javier's family, leaving them wondering and worrying for weeks. And then there is the immigration system that the migrants bump up against. They are so desperate to come to our country, and we treat their dreams so callously. I don't know what the answer is, but this book makes it clear that we need to do better.

The Strange Library

 The Strange Library

By Haruki Murakami

By now, I've exhausted all of the Murakami at the local libraries except this one. It's quite short, and took

only an evening to read, so it wasn't quite the immersive experience I was looking for. But it certainly lived up to its title!

The novella tells the story of a man -- a Murakami man! -- who wanders into a library looking to check out books. He is directed to a basement, where and old man leads him into a labyrinth and demands he check out a book. The narrator, who was more in the mood to browse than anything, is incredibly passive and gives into the old man's demands, even when he is taken deeper underground into a reading room that winds up being a jail cell. The assignment there: Read two books on tax collection in the Ottoman Empire and pass a test on it to be released. At first, he complies, but then the person who brings meals -- delicious meals, it turns out -- reveals that all of this reading and memorizing is just to make his brain more tasty and delicious and that, whether he passes the test or not, his gray matter will become a meal for the old man.

Then a young woman appears. There's always a young woman, isn't there? And she helps him escape the library to safety.

Very strange. But not long enough.

The Borrower

 The Borrower 

By Rebecca Makkai

I picked this one up based upon the binge-worthiness of Makkai's most recent novel, I have some

questions for you. If Richard Russo's quip on the front cover is to be believed, this is her first novel. 

The protagonist-antagonist of this book is Lucy Hull, a children's "librarian" -- quotes because she never received her library science degree -- in Hannibal, MO, who develops a close relationship with one of her patrons, or borrowers, named Ian Drake, a voracious reader living under the strict thumb of a conservative Christian mother. So Lucy slips Ian books every now and again that she thinks he will like. Until.

One day, Ian gives Lucy a piece of origami as a Christmas present. When she unfolds it, she sees a testimonial written by Ian's mother about her son's participation in a gay-conversion therapy run by a prominent pastor. Lucy is horrified, and suddenly obsessed with her young friend's plight. So when she finds him camped out in the children's room of the library one morning after running away from home, she is torn about what to do. She half-heartedly tries to drive him home, but when it is clear he is jerking her around -- and that he DOES NOT want to go home -- she just keeps driving. And driving. And driving. To Chicago and Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Vermont. So now Lucy is the "borrower". 

The journey takes up the bulk of the book, and I will say it was a bit excruciating to read. I mean, it's such a horrible decision on so many levels and clearly nothing but doom awaits. And there are really no hints that anything else is coming. It's like watching a slow motion car wreck for two hundred pages. Things improved after a stop in Pittsburgh, where Lucy learns an important secret about her father, who nearly lost his life fleeing the Soviet Union, and it becomes clear that the trip is as much about Lucy rescuing herself as it is about her rescuing Ian. 

I will say that the ending was a bit too tidy and happy. Somehow, Lucy gets away with it. Which is just impossible. A kid goes missing for over a week, shows up again on a Grayhound -- somebody is going to jail. So that was disappointing. But, over all, a pretty good read.