Description

A gripping, devastating feminist read from one of the hottest young novelists working in the UK today – for fans of Deborah Levy, Ottessa Moshfegh and Daisy Johnson

Man Booker Prize-longlisted author of The Water Cure

RECOMMENDED READING FOR 2020 by Stylist, Evening Standard, Esquire, Red, Daily Mail, Oprah Magazine, LitHub, and Emma Roberts’s Belletrist Book Club

‘The cool intensity and strange beauty of Blue Ticket is a wonder – be sure to read everything Sophie Mackintosh writes’ Deborah Levy, author of Hot Milk

‘Definitely don’t miss the return of Sophie Mackintosh… She’s amazing’ Stylist, Best Reads of Autumn 2020

Calla knows how the lottery works. Everyone does. On the day of your first bleed, you report to the station to learn what kind of woman you will be. A white ticket grants you children. A blue ticket grants you freedom. You are relieved of the terrible burden of choice. And, once you’ve taken your ticket, there is no going back.

But what if the life you’re given is the wrong one?

Blue Ticket is a devastating enquiry into free will and the fraught space of motherhood. Bold and chilling, it pushes beneath the skin of female identity and patriarchal violence, to the point where human longing meets our animal bodies.

‘Dreamlike, tense, compelling, [with] a pitch-perfect ending’ The New York Times

‘Gripping, ethereal, atmospheric’ Sunday Times

‘Thoughtful and haunting’ Observer

‘Terrifying and enchanting in equal measure’ LitHub

‘Blue Ticket will worms its way under your skin and haunt your dreams’ Red

Publisher Review

Blue Ticket manages to be both claustrophobic and expansive, dream-like and heart-stoppingly tense. You will want to languish in its world for a very long time Strange and luminous, spare and precise... A thrilling exploration of what it means to follow one's own longing to the point of destruction and beyond This book left me breathless - it is gloriously subversive in its exploration of motherhood and desire. I'll be pressing it on everyone The cool intensity and strange beauty of Blue Ticket is a wonder - be sure to read everything Sophie Mackintosh writes