The Ticket

A free plane ticket, anywhere in the world — grabbed on instinct at an airport gate in the summer of 1989. It's the small object the whole novel turns on, and it's where this story starts. In the first episode of Lost Here Before, I introduce the book, the trip, and the woman at the center of both. How a forgotten file on an old hard drive turned into a novel almost forty years in the making. Why I picked up the phone to call someone I hadn't really spoken to in over a decade — and what it meant when she answered. And the first reading from the opening pages: a young man waking up next to the woman he's about to leave, already carrying more than he's willing to admit. It starts out like a Gen X rom-com — a guy, his best friend, a Eurail pass, a girlfriend back home, and a free ticket he doesn't know what to do with — and then becomes something more honest: a true story told from two sides, and a young man who mistook keeping his options open for being free. 🎧 Episode 1 playlist (the real songs behind this episode) and more at the links. Follow Lost Here Before on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Threads.