PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A real-life photo from 1948 inspired Portland author Kristina McMorris to write her latest novel “Sold on a Monday.”
That photo shows 4 children sitting on a Chicago stoop under a sign that reads: “4 children for sale — inquire within.”
“I saved the photo for a while and it just kept haunting me and [I kept] coming back to it,” McMorris said.
Her historical fiction books have made the major best seller lists and “Sold on a Monday” is on track to do the same. Costco ordered 10 times the amount of its original order.
The true story of the children in the photo
“What I enjoy is bringing true stories — these amazing nuggets of history that you think, how do people not know this? I should have known this — and put an interesting story around it that sells it as fiction,” McMorris said.
She said she didn’t intend for this novel to be so timely, covering issues of sexism, human trafficking and families being separated.
“So many topics that I didn’t plan on being relevant today. But as you write a story like that, you come out the other end and think, ‘wow, there are so many things that are still relevant to this day,” she said.
As for the kids in the photo, one is still alive and spoke to McMorris, offering support for the book and her effort to give the children in her novel a better outcome than the real children had.
There is a book launch party for “Sold on a Monday” at the Clackamas Barnes and Noble on Sept. 12 at 7 p.m.