The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow - by Kristen Martin (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Pairing powerful critiques of popular orphan narratives, from Annie to the Boxcar Children to Party of Five, journalist Kristen Martin explores the real history of orphanhood in the United States from the 1800s to the present. Martin reveals the religious charity and mission that was the core of the first orphanages (one that soon changed to profit), the orphan trains that took parentless children out West (often without a choice), and the inherent racism that still underlies the United States' approach to child welfare. Through a combination of in-depth archival research, memoir (Martin herself lost both her parents when she was quite young), and cultural analysis, [this book] ... forces us to reconsider autonomy, family, and community"--

Book Synopsis

The orphan story has been mythologized: Step one: While a child is still too young to form distinct memories of them, their parents die in an untimely fashion. Step two: Orphan acquires caretakers who amplify the world's cruelty. Step three: Orphan escapes and goes on an adventure, encountering the world's vast possibilities.

The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow upends this story. Alongside powerful critiques of popular orphan narratives, from Annie to the Boxcar Children to Party of Five, journalist Kristen Martin explores the real history of orphanhood in the United States, from the 1800s to the present. Martin reveals the mission of religious indoctrination that was at the core of the first orphanages, the orphan trains that took poor children out West (often without a choice), and the inherent racism and classism that still underlie the United States' approach to child welfare.

Through a combination of in-depth archival research, memoir (Martin herself lost both her parents as a child), and cultural analysis, The Sun Won't Come out Tomorrow is a compellingly argued, compassionate book that forces us to reconsider autonomy, family, and community. Martin delivers a searing indictment of America's consistent inability to care for those who need it most.

Review Quotes

"Provocative and captivating, this book challenges our assumptions and illuminates the harsh realities of orphanhood in America."--Gabrielle Glaser, author of American Baby

"The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow is a deeply researched, comprehensive rebuke to sentimental depictions of orphans as plucky adventurers, exposing the shameful reality of this country's treatment of its most vulnerable citizens throughout its history and up to this very moment."--Washington Independent Review of Books

"The history is sweeping, damning and infuriating, and requires the depth and care that Martin deploys to understand it fully.... The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow contributes to a cultural understanding in which orphanhood is neither manufactured, nor idealized, nor divorced from its dark history. Yet, it still carries an optimism that would make Orphan Annie proud -- the hope that we might move beyond the fictional tropes and toward an accountability to American families that we have not yet achieved."--Washington Post

"[Martin's] impeccably researched account is eye-opening and tragic, illuminating how religious extremism and racism, among other factors, determined the welfare of generations of children."
--Columbia magazine

"A thought-provoking look at a system that has always been dysfunctional."--Booklist

"Powerful... a damning assessment of America as a society built on the exploitation of children."--Publishers Weekly

"A deeply compassionate, rigorously researched, and passionately argued exploration of the gap between the myths and realities of American orphanhood. This searing history left me outraged, enlightened, and full of deepened conviction that we need to keep peeling away our collective American mythologies in order to reckon with our hardest truths."
--Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters

"Martin has produced an indictment long overdue--and indispensable."
--Brenda Wineapple, author of Keeping the Faith

"Martin's searing and essential dive into the truth and fiction of American orphanhood makes clear the racism and classism that undergird our treatment of vulnerable children and their families. Martin shows the reality is far from our comfortable myths, and that we can't solve this long-standing crisis if we don't first accurately name it."
--Roxanna Asgarian, author of We Were Once a Family

"With immense courage and capability, Martin exposes this hidden American history, and in doing so, she compels us to see what is true, not the comforting, nonsensical stories we tell ourselves about what it means to be an orphan."
--Christine Kenneally, author of Ghosts of the Orphanage

About the Author

Kristen Martin is a writer and critic. Her work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Atlantic, New Republic, on NPR, and elsewhere. She received an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University. The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow is her first book. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.