Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride - by Brian Sweany (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In the highly personal tradition of Jenny Offill and Elena Ferrante, Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride is loosely based on Sweany's tragicomic teenage life growing up in Indiana and his later years working in the New York publishing industry. Hunter S. Thompson biographer William McKeen called it, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Leave It to Beaver." And bestselling author Frank Bill adds, "In the vein of David Sedaris or Chuck Palahniuk, Brian Sweany has written a tight satirical story that has you bent over with laughter one moment, then wiping away the tears the next minute."

From the Back Cover

In the highly personal tradition of Jenny Offill and Elena Ferrante, Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride is loosely based on Sweany's tragicomic teenage life growing up in Indiana and his later years working in the New York publishing industry. Hunter S. Thompson biographer William McKeen calls it, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Leave It to Beaver." And bestselling author Keith Donohue adds, "For anyone who ever wonders about that guy in school who has more fun, more girls, more drinks, more sex, drugs, and rock and roll, more luck (and bad luck) of the Irish, Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride tells all. But behind every party is the hidden truth: that the world, if given time, will break your heart."

Review Quotes

"Exposing the belly of the male beast is a brave thing to do. Brian Sweany writes like an American Martin Amis, and that's a great thing."
--Alexandra Fuller, author of Fi: A Memoir of My Son

"Funny and tragic, occasionally even a warm, homespun homage-to-me-familia, but it is the dark and subversive stretches that burned deeply into my psyche and kept me turning the page."
--Sonny Brewer, author of The Poet of Tolstoy Park

"A fast-paced, easy to read story that...will hold your attention from the first line in the prologue to the very last page."
--Mary Monroe, author of Double Lives

"By turns funny, dark, and darkly funny, Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride definitely won't disappoint."
--Jon Clinch, author of The General and Julia

"The kind of coming-of-age story that appears every few years and instantly becomes a classic."
--Larry D. Sweazy, author of The Broken Bow

"Prepare yourself for a nostalgic, strikingly honest trip back to your yearning youth. It will do more than jog your memory; it will run your memory over with a juggernaut of hormones, teen confusion, and dawning awareness."
--David L. Robbins, author of The Shortest Road

About the Author

Brian Sweany has spent the last sixteen years as acquisitions director for audiobook publisher Recorded Books, working with such varied authors as Diana Gabaldon, Dean Koontz, and Alice Walker. Hailed as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Leave It to Beaver." by Hunter S. Thompson biographer William H. McKeen, Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride is based largely on the author's own personal tragedies growing up in Indiana. He lives in Indianapolis.