Spend All You Have

Spend All You Have is a coming-of-age story set in a suburb of Chicago in 1956. Caroline Prosser, age 11, is teased at school for having a mother who's been to the "funny farm" and a friend whose immigrant parents are rumored to be Communists. Caroline looks forward to being in her sister Joey's December wedding to a progressive young newspaper reporter working on Chicago's South Side. Joey is making her own wedding dress and their father, a Dad out of Norman Rockwell, is fixing up an apartment for the newlyweds above the garage. But the family argues about the groom's politics and Civil Rights, and Caroline's mother, Belle, creates conflicts as she pursues unrealistic escapes from her traditional homemaker's role. Caroline comes home from school to find her mother squeezing into Joey's wedding dress. Convinced that she's about to marry her daughters fiancé. Belle alarms the neighbors by walking to the church through a snowstorm with the torn dress only partially fastened. That night, sedated, she disappears from the house, and even her husband must admit that something is wrong. With her mother in a mental hospital, Caroline confronts intolerance in her school and town. She helps her family weather the crisis, drawing on the support of their African-American house cleaner. In doing all this, she finds new strengths in herself and new compassion for those she loves.