A fresh and whimsical novel featuring a single mother in Brooklyn who suddenly discovers an ATM machine that gives her free (and unrecorded) cash; what she does with that money changes many lives—including her own.
Mia Saul is down on her luck. She’s been dumped by her husband, fired from her job, and forced to move with her ten-year-old daughter Eden to a crummy apartment. Juggling temp jobs, arguing over child support, and trying to keep Eden’s increasingly erratic behavior in check leaves Mia weary and worn out. So when a routine stop at an ATM turns into a stroke of luck Mia never expected, the results are nothing short of...magical.
Teetering between guilt and generosity, Mia takes advantage of her sudden windfall in small ways. She also develops relationships with a variety of neighborhood characters she ordinarily would never have crossed paths with—and turns her life around in ways she never thought possible.
Poignant, smart, and utterly captivating, this quirky "pay-it-forward" tale captures the everyday concerns of women everywhere.
"Book clubs: here's your new selection! Breaking the Bank is masterful, modern and magical. The odyssey of Mia Saul, left by her husband to raise their daughter alone is filled with surprises, heartbreak and hope. Ms. McDonough's craft is in full bloom: her sure hand is evident in this cast of original characters who live in a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Breaking the Bank will enthrall readers everywhere." --Adriana Trigiani, author of Very Valentine and Lucia, Lucia
"Yona Zeldis McDonough has written a deliciously intriguing black comedy that perfectly captures the zeitgeist--with a dash of magic for good measure." --Christina Baker Kline, author of The Way Life Should Be
"Yona Zeldis McDonough's star-bright new novel, "Breaking The Bank," is not really a fable of our times--it accurately portrays our times, where the improbable is sometimes made real. By showing the way we live now, Ms. McDonough illustrates, in language and situations no one else could have created, just how strange and fascinating and true urban life is for the witty hopeful pragmatists that populate this lovely and fully realized work." --Hilton Als, Staff writer, the New Yorker
"A modern-day fairytale, with a twist. McDonough's characters' flaws only serve to underscore their humanity. I couldn't put it down!"--Megan McAndrew, author of Dreaming in French
When I was young, I didn't think about becoming a writer. In fact, I was determined to become a ballerina, because I studied ballet for many years, and by the time I was in high school, I was taking seven ballet classes a week. But I was always a big reader. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and I used to frequent all the different libraries in my neighborhood on a regular basis. I would look for books by authors I loved. I read my favorite books--ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, A LITTLE PRINCESS, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN--over and over again. I probably read each of those books twenty times in all. I read lots of other things too: I loved comic books and magazines, like Mad and Seventeen. But when you are reader, you just need to read. Sometimes you read books that change your life, like OF MICE AND MEN, which I read--and adored-- when I was in sixth grade. Other times, you read the latest adventures of Betty and Veronica. You'll read a three-day old newspaper days or the back of the cereal box if that's all that there is available, because readers just need to read. So I kept reading, and I kept dancing too, though by the time I was a senior in high school, it was pretty clear to me that I was neither talented nor driven enough to become a professional ballet dancer and I stopped taking lessons and went off to college instead.
As a student at Vassar College, I never once took a writing course. I was not accepted into the poetry workshop I applied to, so I avoided all other writing classes, and instead focused on literature, language and art history, which was my declared major. I was so taken with the field that I decided to pursue my studies on a graduate level. I enrolled in a PhD program at Columbia University where I have to confess that I was miserable. I didn't like the teachers, the students or the classes. I found graduate school the antithesis of undergraduate education; while the latter encouraged experimentation, growth, expansion, the former seemed to demand a kind of narrowing of focus and a rigidity that was simply at odds with my soul. It was like business school without the reward of a well-paying job at the end. Everyone carried a briefcase. I too bought a briefcase, but since I mostly used it to tote my lunch and the NYT crossword puzzle, it didn't do much for my success as a grad student. But I have to thank the program at Columbia for being so very inhospitable, because it helped nudge me out of academia, where I so patently did not belong, and into a different kind of life. I was allowed to take classes in other departments, and by now I was recovered from my earlier rejection so I decided to take a fiction writing class--also, the class was open to anyone; I didn't have to submit work to be accepted. This class was my aha! moment. The light bulb went off for me when I took that class. Suddenly, I understood what I wanted to do with my life. Now I just had to find a way to make a living while I did it.
I finished out the year at Columbia, got a job in which I had no interest whatsoever, and began to look for any kind of freelance writing that I could find. In the beginning, I wrote for very little money or even for free: I wrote for neighborhood newspapers, the alumni magazine of my college. I wrote brochures, book reviews, newsletters--anything and everything that anyone would ask me to write. I did this for a long time and eventually, it worked. I was able to be a little choosier about what I wrote, and for whom I wrote it. And I was able to use my clips to persuade editors to actually assign me articles and stories, instead of my having to write them and hope I could get then published.
But all the while I was writing articles and essays, I was also writing the kind of fiction--short stories, a novel--that had interested me when I was still a student at Columbia. And eventually I began to publish this work too. I've written two novels for adults, THE FOUR TEMPERAMENTS and IN DAHLIA'S WAKE--and my third novel, BREAKING THE BANK, will be out in September. I presently live in Brooklyn, NY with my husband and our two children and two small, yappy dogs. I have been setting my recent novels in my own backyard so to speak; Brooklyn has been fertile ground in all sorts of ways.
This review is from: Breaking the Bank (Paperback)
From the first chapter, I was hooked on this book. Using the same locale as "Prospect Park West" Yona tells a far more engrossing story. As in PPW the neighborhood institutions are recognizable, but instead of skimming along on top, peeking in at one-dimensional characters with sleazy sex lives, we are introduced to believable people facing real, though magical, problems.
A single mom struggling with financial problems, with a beloved and stubborn daughter who will not eat, suddenly begins to get more money than she asked for when she goes to her ATM. Her adventures as she tries to help her daughter, resolve the moral and legal issues of taking the money, free herself from her ex, and find new love make for fascinating reading.
I read "Breaking the Bank" in less than 24 hours because I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. And once I was finished I kept thinking about it. It raised so many interesting issues. Is the parent with more money the better parent? Is stealing from an institution stealing if there is no record of it? Should a family help a depressed family member with money troubles with money or with tough love? Does giving money to the needy expiate the shady nature of its acquisition?
Then there were the well-drawn characters of the men to ponder, the seeming sensitive selfish ex, the boring but reliable new man, the wild man who was both a devil and an angel, and the traitorous brother.
I very much enjoy reading novels set in my neighborhood. Interesting how the fairy tale rang more true than the realistic one.
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This review is from: Breaking the Bank (Paperback)
I loved this book! It had me in thrall for days. There was such a nice light touch to it -- it was just a pleasure to read. I liked that it was utterly realistic except for one magic ATM machine. All the relationships, Mia/Eden, Mia/ex-husband, Mia/boyfriends, Mia/girlfriend were totally convincing, and I had to keep turning pages. Also I enjoyed the Park Slope setting. Great job!
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This review is from: Breaking the Bank (Paperback)
This is a feel good story, something nice happening to a nice person. Mia Saul is having a really rough time. Her rat of a husband left her for another woman, and has become a sporadic father to the their ten year old daughter, Eden. She lost the job that she loved, and is trying to support herself and her daughter working temp jobs because she can't count on her ex-husband for child support. Her daughter is having a hard time coping with the divorce, and Mia has her hands full. She is a good mom to Eden, but she is blamed for Eden's problems by Eden's teachers, her ex-husband, and even her own family. When the ATM at her bank starts spiting out free money, at least her money worries are relieved. Of course, there is a whole new set of worries to go along with the free money. Why is she getting this money, and could she go to jail for keeping it? Mia knows that she should give some of the money she is getting to people who are in need, and she begins to find ways to use some of the money to help her neighbors. It was pleasant to read about Mia, an ordinary person dealing with life as best she can, finding herself in the middle of a real life fairy tale.
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