Blue Ticket
Published on 6. May 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-241-98669-1 (ISBN)
Description
From the author longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction and selected as one of the Best Young British Novelists of the Decade:
An unsettling and addictive feminist fable for fans of I Who Have Never Known Men, Hot Milk, Unsettled Ground and Klara and the Sun
Recommended by Stylist, Evening Standard, Esquire, Red, Daily Mail, Oprah Magazine, LitHub, and Belletrist Book Club
'Be sure to read everything Sophie Mackintosh writes' Deborah Levy
'Definitely don't miss the return of Sophie Mackintosh' Stylist
Calla knows how the lottery works. Everyone does. On the day of your first bleed, you report to the lottery 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. Or, to put it another way, you have no 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
An unsettling and addictive feminist fable for fans of I Who Have Never Known Men, Hot Milk, Unsettled Ground and Klara and the Sun
Recommended by Stylist, Evening Standard, Esquire, Red, Daily Mail, Oprah Magazine, LitHub, and Belletrist Book Club
'Be sure to read everything Sophie Mackintosh writes' Deborah Levy
'Definitely don't miss the return of Sophie Mackintosh' Stylist
Calla knows how the lottery works. Everyone does. On the day of your first bleed, you report to the lottery 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. Or, to put it another way, you have no 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
Reviews / Votes
Definitely don't miss the return of Sophie Mackintosh... Blue Ticket gets to the root of women's ambivalence and confusion around becoming mothers set against an unsettling dystopia; she's amazing * Stylist, Best Autumn Reads 2020 * Dreamlike, tense, compelling... Blue Ticket adds something new to the dystopian tradition set by Orwell's 1984 or Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale... Piercing moments of wisdom and insight drive toward a pitch-perfect ending * The New York Times * 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' Even more hallucinatory and spiralled than her first [novel]... Terrifying and enchanting in equal measure * Lit Hub, Best New Books to Read This Summer * The Handmaid's Tale as told by David Lynch... A bona fide chase narrative as well as a polyvalent, dream-like allegory of pregnancy and bodily change - not to mention the vortex of judgement that surrounds womanhood... Mackintosh is part of an exciting generation of writers, including Daisy Johnson and Julia Armfield... Blue Ticket stands apart from the crowd -- Anthony Cummins * iNews * One of the most disquieting novels I've read in a long time, Blue Ticket will worms its way under your skin and haunt your dreams * Red, 'Best Books of August' * Gripping, ethereal, atmospheric... Mackintosh handles haziness deliberately and with poise, demonstrating the near impossibility of trying to articulate or rationalise maternal desire * Sunday Times * Mackintosh writes with a language drawn from the body.... Impressionistic and haunting in equal measure -- Annabel Nugent * Independent * Visceral, primal, striking... This is a potent exploration of biology and agency, motherhood and childlessness, which confirms [Mackintosh] as a writer of note * Daily Mail * Mackintosh is part of a new generation of female writers creating feminist fictions that relate uncannily to our dystopian times... [Her] fiction lives, to an unusual extent, in its musicality, in the rhythm and spareness of its sentences -- Claire Armitstead * Guardian Review *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 132 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
220 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-98669-1 (9780241986691)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Sophie Mackintosh is the author of four novels, including The Water Cure and Cursed Bread. She has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Women's Prize, has won a Betty Trask Award, and has been selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. She has been published in Granta, The White Review and TANK magazine among others. Her new novel, Permanence, will be published in April 2026.