The Wolf Ticket: A Novel

by Caro Clarke

In the last months of WWII, Pascale Tailland, an American translator serving in the U.S. Women's Army Corps bound west out of Germany with her unit, sees a refugee on the station platform wistfully contemplating her train. The refugee is dressed like a young man, but Pascale, intuitively knowing that it is a woman, pulls her aboard as the train starts to roll. These two women, thrown together by chance, torn apart by the destruction in wartime Europe, straggle to find each other again across a chaotic continent. The soldier is as fearless with her heart as with her ideals; the Polish refugee, who has survived years of desperation and danger, has the cunning of a wolf.

In their attempts to reunite they are hindered, helped, and loved by many women. There's Nell Tulliver, international war correspondent -- hard-boiled, soft-hearted, and well-connected; Captain Corinne West, a competent and proper officer, unduly influenced by love as she bends military rules; and Sibylle Benard, a French prostitute and German collaborator -- a woman who got by as best she could by relying on the available men -- now falling in love with a woman.

The Wolf Ticket is a first novel of great skill and imagination, tautly written and powerful.

Genres: LGBT, Historical, Fiction, Lesbian, Lesbian Fiction, Queer

214 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1998

Reviews

[Sarah Cavar]

Very wild and poorly plotted historical erotic lesbian wish fulfillment? But entertaining and easy to read in one sitting. An interesting entry in my ongoing efforts to find and read old er lesbian books from small/defunct presses.

[Caro Clarke]

This is not a review but an announcement (so no stars). I am Caro Clarke, author of "The Wolf Ticket" and I wanted to say that if you enjoyed this book, I think you will really like my latest book: "My Home is on the Mountain."

[Tam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really into this book. More books about star-crossed lesbian lovers, please! It was the kind of whirlwind destiny romance story that I feel like we don't get very often and I was quite pleased. I also liked how she acknowledged that the happy ending required sacrifice, despite being much more than what most queers at that time could have hoped for.

[Amanda Youngs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even more than a week after I finished reading it, I feel sad to have finished this debut novel from Caro Clarke. How often does that happen to you? Characters don't come to life and remain with you long after the final page of the book is closed unless the writer has something.

Lesbian romance is a common enough theme for novels these days, and they aren't all worth reading. I've read enough of the equivalent of lesbian Mills & Boone to have decided never to go there again. However, this is a love story between two women who meet, have the "coup de foudre" thunderclap instant knowing that this other person is for them - and I have always been interested in the notion of love at first sight. Most importantly, and what makes this novel unique to me, the love story has a powerful historical context of the end of World War II.

Two women meet briefly and share a short time together before life separates them again. The rest of the novel is seen through their eyes and the eyes of the other women they are involved with in some way before the two women are able to find their way back together again. The twist is that one of the women is disguised as a young man, doing "men's work".

Caro Clarke has clearly done her historical research, because it permeates the novel. As one of life's cowards, I appreciate the way the evils of war are handled with a light touch, although they are not ignored. I particularly like the way she dovetails together each segment of the book by transitioning to another woman's story as the plot advances. This is a debut novel of promise and I look forward to reading more of her work.

[Verónica Díaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gustó, bastante.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when it first came out in the late 90s, and I loved it. It's a kind of fairy-tale romance, but also a rather gritty evocation of young people surviving in devastated Europe at the end of WWII. It is written in an understated, concise style to which I am very partial, but I think it has heart. The love-making is described obliquely, a "less-is-more" approach that makes the main characters Pascale and Witold, and the book as a whole, sexier.