A Game to Play on the Tracks

By Lorna Jackson

A Game to Play on the Tracks is the story of booze-loose and too-smart singer, Arden, and her failed return to the life of country music and the British Columbia bar scene. She has a new baby, some unhealed hurts, and a husband, Nichol, who is stuck in boyhood and thinks and talks in bad poems. Arden doesn't survive the road, and the story belongs then to Nichol and Roy the Boy, those left behind to search the west coast for a good home, a good life, a meaningful history. Without Arden, Nichol tries a series of goofed-up love affairs and real estate blunders, and Roy grows up questioning a fallen pastoral world that isn't always kind to children, haunted by his long-gone mother and her big-city tunes.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0889842310
• ISBN13: 9780889842311
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Porcupine's Quill
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A sophisticated, albeit moody, reflection

A Game To Play On The Tracks by Lorna Jackson begins with Arden, a mother who has some very serious problems with alcohol and self-absorption. Arden's struggle to resume her life of country music at the British Columbia bar scene but is faltering. Her husband has a Peter Pan complex and talks in bad poems. When Arden doesn't survive the road, both her husband and son are left behind to make sense of an often insane and unjust world. An engaging and thoughtful read, A Game To Play On The Tracks is a sophisticated, albeit moody, reflection on the inequalities and distant dreams of one human life.