A Ticket to Ride

by Paula McLain

Book Overview

In the long, hot Illinois summer of 1973, insecure, motherless Jamie falls under the dangerous spell of her older, more worldly cousin Fawn, who's come to stay with Jamie and her uncle as penance for committing an "unmentionable act."

It is a time of awakenings and corruptions, of tragedy and loss, as Jamie slowly discovers the extent to which Fawn will use anything and anyone to further her own ends--and recognizes, perhaps too late, her...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061340529
• ISBN13: 9780061340529
• Release Date: November 2015
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Beautifully written tale of vulnerability and bad choices

I thought this was a great book! And an acquaintance who read it said "boy, McLain really knows how to get into the head of an adolescent!" That is certainly true - but Ticket to Ride is no teen-age novel. Poetic writing and fast action highlight a timeless tale of the choices we make for the wrong reasons - love, a need to belong, and misplaced loyalty. This is a carefully constructed story of two intertwined relationships that builds suspense gradually to a dynamite ending that keeps you on edge till the last sentence.

haunting & beautifully written

This novel is a treasure -- it simultaneously captures the hopefulness of a coconut-scented summer's day and the loneliness of a girl who yearns for female intimacy. Who hasn't been there? McLain's descriptions of Jamie's internal and external worlds bring it all back. Having read all of McLain's poetry and her memoir, her new novel is no surprise. The writing is sensual and heartbreaking, the study of character honest and deep. The secrets that connect Jamie and her uncle will haunt you just as they do their characters. If you liked Dorothy Allison's Ruth Anne in [...] out of NC or Carson McCullers's Frankie in The Member of the Wedding or Marilyn Robinson's Ruth in Housekeeping, then you'll like Paula McLain's Jamie in A Ticket to Ride. Read this novel & then go back and read McLain's other work. You won't be sorry.

A Lyric Song to Adolescence

I cried both times I came to the achingly sad and hopeful end of Paula McLain's book, where all the beautiful threads of desire and loss, spun out in her lyric voice, were woven together in the simple sentence, "Was there anything sadder than starting your life?" Her characters make my heart ache, for they represent so deeply what is flawed and ragged about all of us.

What a beautiful book!

I loved the rich sense of place and the evocation of the times (early 70's and the mid 60's) and the dynamic between the main characters, that intense first friendship that you'll do anything for, was really fresh and powerful. The language is beautiful, lyrical and funny and the psychological insight the author showed was consistently acute and moving. Overall, the book had a great balance of plot, characterization and poetic detail. I really, really recommend this book!

"Fawn was responsible for all the good things, like a force of nature "a neutron star, pulling every

An adolescent friendship forms the core of this remarkable and beautifully written novel where emotions end up colliding in a maelstrom of guilt and betrayal. At its heart A Ticket to Ride is a love story between a niece and her uncle and between a brother and his younger sister as it charts the fertile territory of family bonds and shows how rampant loyalty can sometimes have devastating consequences. It is the summer of 1973 and the young Jamie feels an unsteady mixture of delight and hesitance when her uncle Raymond tells her that her older cousin Fawn Delacorte will be flying in from Phoenix and staying with them both for summer at their home in Moline, Illinois. Raymond doesn't elaborate on the reasons Fawn will be staying only to say that according to Fawn's mother Camille, the girl is currently "at loose ends' and a companion for the season is certainly something that could be of benefit to both girls. Shy and diffident, Jamie considers herself "the tragic girl," the one who keeps her asthma inhaler in her lunch box, who reads to much and who spends too much time alone. So she doesn't know quite what to make of Fawn when Raymond and Jamie pick Fawn up from O'Hare International Airport and she suddenly appears at the arrival gate, looking crisp and shiny, a type of magic potion, and a walking and talking human elixir. The friendship begins with a present of a purse, "breath-mint white, the size of an apple with a long leather strap," the object in stark contrast to Jamie's dowdy denim jumper with fat plastic buttons, and her suntan pantyhose pooling at her knees. But Jamie senses promise here and in the days after Fawn's arrival nothing and everything happens. Clearly Jamie wants Fawn to become her best and most treasured friend with all the ferocity that she can muster. This older, glamorous girl is someone whom Jamie can talk to for the first time in years. Their days filled with music and television as Jamie finds herself dressing for Fawn's approval, parting her hair the way Fawn instructs as they read magazines together, and sunbathing on the side of the house, talking until late at night, Fawn totally free with her forbidden secrets. Fawn seems so certain of herself and the world at large that Jamie just feels relieved to be guided by her, trusting Fawn's sense of things. Meanwhile, Raymond has his own story to tell. Eight years earlier, he reflects on his troubled sister Suzette, the mother of Jamie. A damaged and insecure soul, Suzette spent much of her short life running from the ridiculous choices she made and the willing self-destructiveness that mired much of her life. Over the years Raymond has had to do battle with the endless boyfriends, the bankruptcies, and the Dexedrine that has kept her thin and brutally optimistic: "the girl's such trouble" remarks Raymond's best friend Leon, more than once. A bad news, high-risk, and hard luck case, Raymond can never just walk away from his beloved sister, even after all the m