A Ticket to the Boneyard Summary
Lawrence Block

Everything you need to understand or teach A Ticket to the Boneyard by Lawrence Block.

  • A Ticket to the Boneyard Summary & Study Guide

A Ticket to the Boneyard Summary

Social concerns seem to be minimal in the latest Matt Scudder novel, A Ticket to the Boneyard. Although prostitution (including transsexual prostitution) is part of the story, it is presented only as another way to make a living, one which has its own peculiar jobrelated problems. The theme of the insecurity of urban life — with the attendant need for locks and "security systems" — is less a social concern than a matter of individual terror. Matt lives out the law of the jungle — eat or be eaten; kill or be killed — mostly uncritically, and no separate narrative voice puts this extreme behavior into any social context.

The themes are mainly put forward in a negative form: actions subvert the stated moral positions. Matt says that one shouldn't play God after remembering how he framed James Leo Motley for assaulting a police...

(read more from the Short Guide)

Study Pack

The A Ticket to the Boneyard Study Pack contains:

A Ticket to the Boneyard Short Guide