Summary:
In Blue Ticket, Sophie
Mackintosh constructs a dystopian vision of modern life for women. Ambiguously
set in space and time (given the technology presented we know it takes place
around the present day, and not much else), Mackintosh’s universe is one in
which a girl’s destiny is set at the time of her first period, when she
receives either a white ticket or a blue ticket from the government. These
designations are supposedly based on intense scrutiny from the State, and they
determine the path each woman will lead. White ticket women, as they’re called,
are destined for motherhood, having been deemed worthy of childrearing. Blue
ticket women, implanted with a permanent intrauterine device and forbidden from
getting pregnant, are bound for the working world, bound for a
"free" life that "could change at any time."
Each girl must leave her family to start a new life after
her ticket is drawn, and the white tickets and blue tickets immediately
diverge. The white ticket girls are ferried safely to their destination cities,
while the blue ticket girls must brave the open road on foot and alone,
fighting for survival and the privilege of an adult life.
We meet
Calla, the narrator, as she teeters on the brink of menarche. One by one her
female classmates have disappeared from around her, and she is one of only
three girls left in school when her period finally arrives. She draws a blue
ticket, and embarks on a new life as a chemist, initially living the free and
unencumbered life that blue ticket women are supposed to lead. Yet desire for a
child smolders inside her, a “dark” feeling that crawls under her skin until it
is impossible to ignore. Desperate, Calla removes her IUD and finds a man,
known only as R, to unwittingly father her child. When R learns what she has
done he turns his back on her, disgusted by her aberrant behavior.
Calla’s illicit
pregnancy is communicated to the government by her doctor, known as Doctor A.
In this world, citizens are required to meet with their doctor regularly, and
the doctors, who act as a hybrid between therapist and primary care provider,
report their patients’ thoughts and behaviors to the government. Doctor A
offers to terminate the pregnancy with no consequences, but Calla refuses, a
decision from which there is no coming back. Calla is provided with a backpack
of basic survival tools and a map, and told that she must be prepared to flee
to the border at any moment—the government will give her a head start to reward
her years of loyal service, but even so, they’re sure to find her before she
can cross.
The
question of what will happen if she is caught haunts Calla as her pregnancy
progresses and she awaits the signal to flee. When it finally arrives, in the
form of government emissaries on her doorstep, Calla’s final view of her old
life as she speeds away is of her neighbors destroying her home. On the road,
Calla is once again alone and vulnerable. Strangers, eager to take advantage of
a lone woman, pose a more immediate threat than the government. Yet Calla’s outlook
takes a turn for the better when she meets Marisol, a self-assured blue ticket
woman who is also pregnant and headed for the border. The two protect each
other, and as time goes on they are joined by other blue ticket women on the
run, and one white ticket woman, who fears returning to her husband after an
illegal abortion. Determined to escape the lives chosen for them, their freedom
rests not only on their individual tenacity, but also on their ability to help
each other. Yet the question of who to trust looms large, and casts a shadow as
they flee towards a new life.
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