Sunday Money
A Novel
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected May 14, 2024
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- $9.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
It's 1971, but for Claire Joyce and girls’ basketball, it might as well be 1871. Stilted rules (three-bounce dribbling, two roving players for full-court games, and uniforms that include bloomers) set their play unfairly apart from the boys’ basketball Claire’s older brother John has trained her in.
Basketball is the only constant in Claire life, and as she enters her teen years the skills she’s cultivated on the court—passing, shooting, and faking—help her guard against the chaos of an alcoholic mother, an increasingly violent younger brother, and the downward spiral her beloved John soon finds himself unable to climb out of. Deeply cut from the cloth of the Catholic Church, Brooklyn’s working class, and the limited expectations her world has for girls, Claire strives to find a mirror that might reflect a different, future self. Then Title IX bounces on the scene. Suddenly, girls’ basketball becomes explosive, musical, passionate, and driven—and if Claire plays it just right, it just might offer a full ride to a previously out-of-reach college.
Sunday Money follows Claire as she narrates her way through 1970s Brooklyn, hustling on and off the court and striving to break free of the turmoil in her home and the rulebook “good” girls are supposed to follow.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A teenager navigating a difficult homelife finds solace in basketball in this gritty debut, set in 1970s Brooklyn. Claire is the youngest of four and the only daughter in her Irish Catholic family reared by an alcohol-dependent mother and emotionally withdrawn father. From an early age, her brother John coaches her in basketball, teaching her how to play and how to employ her skill beyond the blacktop. Claire uses basketball to escape the trauma she experiences at home, such as her brother Bobby's physical abuse and her mother's drinking ("I start thinking about whether it's a drinking night or not. My mother is not an everyday drunk.") Newly passed Title IX provides hope for Claire's future as a collegiate student-athlete, and this goal steers her away from following in her mother's footsteps. Via period-typical prose—Bobby is often referred to as "crazy" or "mental"—Hill depicts a working-class family dealing with substance use and mental illness. While Claire's choppy stream-of-consciousness narration often evokes detachment, the text is bolstered by Hill's descriptions of the ways in which sports help Claire maintain and repair bonds, break destructive patterns, and build boundaries. Ages 13–up.
