The Splendid Ticket

by Bill Cotter

Angie Bigelow has won the jackpot: a $324 million lottery ticket. How will she spend the money? Will she share it with the father of her children, dissolute Dean Lee Grandet--even though he's an inveterate gambler she plans on leaving? Angie, the lost soul at the center of Bill Cotter's poignant and darkly comic novel, The Splendid Ticket, is facing this dilemma when a new tragedy tears through their household. Is that mere slip of numbered paper in the watch pocket of Angie's Levi's their ticket to freedom or the beginning of the end? In a fast-moving plot, shot through with originality and heart, this is the story of the Grandets discovering the alchemy that holds their family together, testing its limits and running headlong into whatever their futures hold. Set in the verdant and sun-soaked Texas Hill Country, The Splendid Ticket tracks the push and pull, the bitter tension and the potent attraction, between these two impulsive individuals--and everyone caught in the storm that surrounds them..

302 pages, Hardcover

First published December 6, 2022

About the author

Bill Cotter was born in Dallas in 1964, and has labored as an antiquarian book dealer and restorer since 2000. He presently lives in Austin with his girlfriend, the poet Annie La Ganga, and Travis, an inextinguishable roach who divides his time between the shower and the silverware drawer.

Reviews

[Madeleine · Rating 4 out of 5]

TW for this book: suicide ideation, death, self harm

This is really a book about an unextraordinary family dealing with tragedies that can happen to any of us, no matter how low the probabilities. This is a story of a family facing the struggles that many families do - addiction, loss, grief, trauma, love, and so much more. It is in many ways why this is a frustrating read because I wanted the characters to be something more than what they were - more capable, more mature, more able to overcome. But they weren’t, they were authentic & fallible.

I would have loved for the pivotal or emotional moments to have been savoured further but instead unfolded often one after the other in a page or two - making me feel like I was being hit by wave after wave.

ALSO loved the cover of this book. Kudos.

[Jacob Lietz]

I really appreciated how this book not only works through tragedy, but how tragedy is only ever exacerbated by our flaws. In some ways we force ourselves, as these characters do, to relive the worst moment of (our) their lives again and again.

Started this a few months ago, but had to stop about 100 pages in because of school, and I’m very glad I did. It’s a good book to read over a short time. It’s good to sit with this one distractionless.

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Splendid Ticket is ostensibly about a winning lottery ticket and how it changes the lives of an unsuspecting family, but it’s really about a family that’s trying to stay together against precarious odds. There is a lot of tragedy in this story, but Cotter writes with such humor (and with an occasional dash of absurdity) that it’s hard not to be smitten with these characters and their storylines.

The decisions the characters make, and the directions their lives take, feel both surprising and inevitable. The older daughter Nadine in particular is so sympathetic and so full of conflicting emotions, you’re on the edge of your seat wondering what she’ll do – and how she’ll react – next. Angie too, as Nadine’s mom and our central focal point, is charismatic and whip smart, but you just know she might do something to screw things up any second. And we know for sure her husband Dean Lee is a screwup from the start, but his love for Spanish literature is utterly irresistible.

Bill Cotter’s fast-paced, well-constructed, intimate novel draws us in and drives us around the outskirts of greater Austin. It’s fun, gripping, and heartbreaking all at the same time. I’m not quite sure how he pulled off such a feat.

[Bryson Waind · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun read. Is there an error on page 247? When Angie and Dean Lee leave the therapist it is after 4 o'clock, but at the restaurant it is 3:30. The author makes an emphatic point about the time in this scene so I wonder if this isn't an error but a point about something that I'm not picking up.

[Jade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who is Bill Cotter? What is a splendid ticket? We don’t know! This book has zero buzz and is random AF! Doesn’t matter! It is so good and so insane and so shocking!!!! Number one, the first page had such beautiful descriptions I started crying in my car while listening to it. The writing is so beautiful that even though I was listening to the audiobook, I then downloaded the ebook so I can read and highlight the sentences over and over because I want to eat them and marry them. But it’s not just craft! No! The story itself is also superb! It is so weird and so shocking and it just keeps getting more shocking! There are no cheap twists! They bombshells are very earned but still feel like they came out of nowhere! This story is incredibly original and it is so refreshing! I have never read anything like it! In terms of downsides, it kind of reminds me of Virginia Woolfs To the Lighthouse in that big things happen with characters and it’s just treated like it’s no big deal. Also, the ending does feel abrupt. but I still don’t regret a second of the time I spent with this beautiful gem of a novel. It now lives in my head rent free….or for $324 million dollars, depending on how you look at it. Anyway, just read it!!!!

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goddamn. Spectacularly written, from plot to sentence. The ending made me so furious I almost docked a star. I refrained, given I haven't read a book this fast since I discovered werewolf erotica in middle school. After my phone died at a kolache place called Batch, I picked up a signed copy on the windowsill and proceeded to read half the book until my ass went numb. Then I figured out how to work the dark web so I could find a copy immediately. Finished it in a sitting--literally unwashed and starving by the end of it. I will give the procrastination of my job hunting a sliver of credit but no more.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an interesting, surprising, and entertaining book. Despite the tragedies and calamities that befall this Texas family, Cotter's light and his humor keep us aloft as his characters grope their way forward to an understanding, or an acceptance, of who they are, both together and separate. The novel is crafty really, seemingly matter-of-fact while operating at a much higher level, not unlike his characters, who btw, are fun to spend time with.

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

This time the cover and the book design were the best aspects of this book. I disliked all of the characters especially the main characters - Texas at it’s worse - drinking, gambling , poor as Job’s Turkey people without much hope even when she wins a winning ticket but mired in the dust of Texas
and ruined dreams and unfortunately I have observed the same the same events in Michigan of people who won big and still failed. Money is not everything.

[Jireh · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a peculiar book. 3.5? 3.75? Idk. It has its moments but mostly I just couldn't follow what's going on with who haha

The ending was so 🙃 in an unsettling way that could be good. Honestly, how odd.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sad story of marrying the Wong man and constantly losing everything then because if his lifestyle and need for a gun to protect himself and lost his daughter and family. What a messed up man

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please read this book. Wonderful characters amazing writing. This author captured a price of rural poor Texas and the type of people that can come from it. A book with a touch of realism so real you’ll hate the ending.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an easy read and the writing is beautiful but the characters are difficult to connect with. I found myself wishing I liked them more but it was an interesting story.

[Bart Bickel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tale from the Texas hill country.

[Richard Dow · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 out of 5 stars. Totally engrossing story!

[emeraldtombstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

liked it so much more than i was expecting !!! so good

[Debba · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I think fans of Kevin Wilson or Tom Robbins will also love it. It has the same, off center, slightly quirky view of a nonetheless grounded reality those other two writers' work possesses. The tragedy, and there are a couple truly tragic events, are handled without melodrama, just a straight telling of what happened. All the characters are real individuals. At first, the narrator bothered me, but then I realized her slightly sardonic, flat reading was precisely what the story needed. I'm a huge fan of this book.

[Abbey Hudes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hated the ending, but had some great moments