The book borrower

by Alice Mattison

"On the first page of The Book Borrower, Toby Ruben and Deborah Laidlaw meet in 1975 in a city playground, where they are looking after their babies, and Deborah lends Toby a book, Trolley Girl, that will appear, disappear, and return throughout the years in which these women are friends. The book is a memoir about a long-ago trolley strike and three Jewish sisters, one a fiery revolutionary."--BOOK JACKET. "Toby and Deborah raise their toddlers in the seventies while arguing over Patty Hearst and the meaning of life. They find work teaching inner-city daycare workers, a job that leads to conflict between them. Meanwhile, Toby reads the opening chapters of Trolley Girl with interest but puts the book aside when its story turns tragic."--BOOK JACKET. "Ten years later we find Toby and Deborah as adjunct English instructors at a local college."--BOOK JACKET. "Another decade passes. Toby and Deborah spend a November afternoon hiking down a trail in the park where they met long ago and argu