Book Nook - Borrowed Child

Author Marguerite Welch is very familiar with what they say about good intentions: when it comes to trying to parent across a cultural divide, well-meaning intentions can quickly turn sour.

Drawing on her own personal experiences, Marguerite has written Borrowed Child, a forthcoming novel about grieving mother Helen—a white, wealthy woman—who takes in Mia, a troubled undocumented Mexican teenager. Helen’s good intentions with mentoring and parenting Mia creep into a form of control, and things spiral.

A haunting and suspenseful cautionary tale, Borrowed Child is about what happens when a well-meaning inclination toward “salvation” goes awry. Though fiction, it mirrors a lot of the author’s experience with her own “Mia,” a young woman whom Marguerite still has a relationship with and consulted while writing the book.

Borrowed Child releases July 15 with She Writes Press.

I had a chance to learn more in this interview:

What was the inspiration for the book?
Borrowed Child was inspired by my relationship with a troubled, undocumented Mexican teenage girl, whom I tutored for eight years and who lived with us her junior year in high school.

This book tackles a variety of issues, including immigration and caregiving. How do you approach writing with topics that require sensitivity and nuance?
In this case, Borrowed Child evolved from a series of interviews with my collaborator, IG, who had complete control over the telling of her story and hoped it would function as a cautionary tale for other young girls who might find themselves in similar circumstances.

What do you hope the reader will gain from reading this book?
I hope the reader will come away with a more nuanced and human understanding of the complex issues surrounding the immigration question and the pitfalls of being overly focused on “salvation.”