Sold on a Monday

Amazing how a picture, published in 1948 in an American Magazine, of four children with a sign saying they were for sale can lead to a book.

I loved the way the writer used it to take me to the States of the forties and fifties with its different classes and its deep poverty. For me, being a journalist, part of the attraction of the book is that the story involves old-fashioned journalists and newspapers. And fake news of the worst kind, long before it became a daily occurrence.

There are many historical novels about the Great Depression but Sold on a Monday moved me in particular. Perhaps I was drawn to it because it is a fictional account of actual circumstances. More likely, though, it is because, in one single story, Sold on a Monday is a lesson in the heart-wrenching decisions hundreds of thousands of people made to ensure their survival. As far-fetched as it sounds to us now, the notion of children being sold, or simply deposited on the front doorstep by their parents, was not uncommon during the Great Depression. The author was incredibly creative… show more.

This is a surprising backdrop for a romance, and I didn’t even buy the book for a romance read. The start is sad and intriguing – based on a true event – where a reported snapped a photo of a sign saying “children for sale” with the children in the background. The reporter is trying to build his career, and the photo was just a personal shot he took because he was shocked. But it ends up in the paper and causes a horrible cascade of events, which also brings him together with a woman who works at the same… show more.

Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris was told from a different angle than I anticipated, and I appreciated the moral dilemma posed by a journalist’s decision that needed undoing. I’m a sucker for hard-time stories set in the 1930s, and I’m reminded of my mother’s childhood. She was one of fifteen children raised by a twice-widowed mother. There was pride in the telling that none of her brothers and sisters were sent away when times were hard.