Sold on a Monday

Best-selling author Kristina McMorris’s historical fiction novel Sold on a Monday (2018) is inspired by a real life event: A photograph published in a 1948 magazine of four siblings standing on their apartment steps with their mother (who is trying to hide her face from the photographer), and a sign advertising the children for sale in the foreground. The overarching theme of the novel is how one person’s poor decision can have many unexpected, and sometimes tragic, outcomes. The story is set in the Depression Era (1931-1932), with the action in and around Philadelphia and rural Pennsylvania, New York City, and Hoboken, New Jersey. The two main characters, 26-year-old newspaper reporter Ellis Reed, and 22-year-old secretary but aspiring newspaper reporter Lily Palmer, narrate the story in first person. The novel’s genre is social realism, because a central focus is on how families survived the Depression’s economic downturn—especially how, when families fell on hard times, they treated their children as income and labor. This guide refers to the 2018 paperback edition by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Plot Summary

Sold on a Monday tells the story of Ellis Reed’s struggle to overcome the terrible choice he makes when he lies to advance his career. Ellis works for the Philadelphia Examiner’s Society pages, a low-paying job usually reserved for women, but he dreams of reporting the news. One day he takes a photograph of two boys on their porch beside a sign that reads: “2 children for sale.” Ellis’s picture gets developed and later hangs in the newspaper’s dark room. Lily, who is the secretary to the editor in chief, Trimble, offers to pick out pictures for Trimble’s Monday review. When she sees Ellis’s photograph, she selects it for review. Trimble offers Ellis a feature article to write the family’s story, bringing Ellis one step closer to his dream of becoming a hard news reporter. But when his only photo of the children is ruined, and the original children’s family is gone, he substitutes two other children and their mother in his story. When the story is published, it sets off a chain of events that he could not have foreseen: The mother of the children in the photo, Geraldine Dillard, sells her children: Calvin, who is about six years old, and Ruby, who is eight and a half, to Alfred and Sylvia Millstone, who buy them to replace their own deceased daughter, Victoria, who was killed in a car accident. The main conflict arises four months later, when Ellis’s boss asks him to do a follow-up story on the children and Ellis learns that they were in fact sold. The story follows how Ellis and Lily work together to unravel the story of the Dillard family and reunite the children with their mother. But the novel’s title, Sold on a Monday , ties into the Monday Trimble saw the pictures and then assigned Ellis the story, because essentially, Ellis’s choice to lie and use the Dillard children in his story precipitated their sale.

Two important subplots in the novel involve Ellis and Lily, who must each overcome their own inner conflicts if they are to work together to reunite Calvin and Ruby with their mother. Ellis must reconcile with his father, who has not shown Ellis any affection since Ellis’s infant brother, Henry, died when Ellis was five. His father dislikes Ellis’s profession, so Ellis is working hard to become a success in his father’s eyes. In the climax of this subplot, Ellis tells his father that he is sorry that he was not the son who died, leading his father to break down his walls and tell Ellis that he bears the responsibility for Henry’s death. Ellis, in turn, shares the trouble he created for the Dillard children and how he intends to fix it.

For Lily, she must come to terms with her choice to keep her son, who was born out of wedlock. Lily did think about trying to miscarry after finding herself pregnant at 17, but when she felt Samuel kick, she didn’t follow through. She chose to have him and to keep him rather than place him for adoption. Although Lily carries the shame of her choice, and worries that God will punish her by taking Samuel away from her, her desire to see all children treated well and to feel wanted, makes her a formidable partner for Ellis. This subplot climax occurs when Samuel is sick. Ellis tells her that God answered her prayers when she heard Samuel kick: Because she did not try to miscarry Samuel, she shouldn’t worry about any lingering guilt.  

After Ellis’s ambition takes him to a bigger job in New York City, he meets with Lily, who brings him a letter about the children for sale. He treats her horribly, and knows that he must apologize to her. On the way back to Delaware, he decides to first stop in to check on the Dillards. He learns that Geraldine sold the children. When he tells Lily, she insists that she join him in tracking them down. Lily and Ellis have feelings for one another, which they keep hidden at first because they have work to do. They get a tip that leads them to Geraldine’s doctor, who tells Lily that Geraldine had tuberculosis. With only a few months to live, her doctor advised her to go a sanitarium. Lily decides that Geraldine likely sold the children for the money. When Lily calls the sanitorium, they tell her Geraldine is dead. But Geraldine is really alive, and when she meets up with Lily and Ellis, she explains the whole story. Geraldine sold her children because she was sick and very scared, but she insisted the children stay together and never spent the money. A tip leads Lily and Ellis to the buyers, Sylvia and Alfred Millstone, but they only have Ruby. They broke their word and sent Calvin to a children’s home, they really only wanted Ruby as a replacement for Victoria. Sylvia saw the picture in the paper; Ruby was identical in appearance to Victoria. So, Lily and Ellis begin the long search to find Calvin. They track him to a children’s home that sold him to a family. When Ellis and Lily find him, Calvin is living alone in a barn, chained to the ground.

The final climax comes when Ellis and Lily, along with Geraldine, go to the Millstones to get Ruby. Sylvia’s brother, Max, is the head of an Italian mob family. He sends for Ellis and, after Ellis explains the situation, which is that Sylvia’s depression after the death of her daughter has led her to some irrational behavior; she thinks Ruby is Victoria. Max, as the head of the family, decides that the next morning Ellis must meet him and pick up Ruby. When Ellis arrives at the house, however, Sylvia is yelling and calling Ruby by the name Victoria, and has cut her hand; broken picture frames litter the floor. Alfred is trying to calm her when Ruby comes downstairs. When Sylvia tells Ruby that she is taking her away, Ellis steps in. Sylvia shoots Ellis and Geraldine. Later, in the hospital, the doctor announces that Ellis and Geraldine will survive. Ellis and Lily share a kiss, and with Samuel, they will stay together.