Feature Stories Campus Events All Stories

W&L Alumna Rebecca Makkai Presents Reading

Washington and Lee University alumna Rebecca Makkai will be reading from her first novel, “The Borrower,” on Wednesday, Oct. 26, at 4 p.m. in the Hillel House Multipurpose Room. The reading will be followed by a book signing and refreshments will be served.

The reading, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Glasgow Endowment.

Makkai’s novel is the story of a children’s librarian named Lucy Hull and her favorite reader, Ian Drake, age 10, who run take to the open road. The book has drawn praise from “Publisher’s Weekly” (“fast-paced, suspenseful, and thoroughly enjoyable”), “Good Housekeeping” (“delightfully quirky”), “Booklist” (“splendid first novel”) and “The New York Times” (“surprisingly moving”), among other publications.

According to the June 28 blog titled What’s News on the Washington and Lee University website, Makkai is featured in the list of summer reading in the July issue of “O: The Oprah Magazine.”

Makkai, a member of W&L’s class of 1999, is currently a Montessori school teacher and has had a story published in Best American Short Stories for four straight years. She earned her M.A. in English from Middlebury’s Bread Loaf School of English.

An interview with Makkai appears in the current (first) online issue of Shenandoah and can be found by at shenandoahliterary.org.

News Contact:
Julie Cline
News Writer
jcline@wlu.edu
540-458-8954