The Day Money Runs Out

Five years after his father’s death, Tom receives an SMS message from him saying, “I’m in trouble, help me.” He believes his father is trying to return from the dead, and that his return depends solely on him. The possibility of his dead father’s return inspires Tom to fix the past and restore a life that has gone awry beyond recognition – and the painful disillusionment that came with it. Tom’s coming-of-age story goes through the various upheavals of a wounded and disrupted family (his mother falls in love with another man, and he moves in with them and the lover’s violent son). The plot reaches its climax in a Dickensian journey through nightmarish institutions for mentally troubled boys.

Yotam Tolub has written a novel that reaches out to the open wound of childhood and the brutal encounter with institutional forces that pretend to control it. His innate, emerging novelistic talent is fueled by a passion to fix the world – and if that fails, at least to write it. The novel is partially based on Tolub’s experience as an activist and as an attorney for the Bizchut organization, which promotes the rights of persons with disabilities.