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Le porteur de nuit
Nous sommes en 1929. En tant qu’homme noir, Baxter devrait se considérer chanceux d’avoir trouvé un emploi comme porteur de wagon-lit à bord d’un train qui sillonne le continent d’un océan à l’autre. Il doit sourire à la clientèle blanche, mais pas trop, et lorsqu’on l’appelle « Georges », il n’a qu’à opiner du bonnet et se faire invisible. Mais ce qui l’obsède, lui, ce sont les dents ; et tout ce qu’il souhaite, c’est épargner assez d’argent en récoltant les pourboires pour payer ses études à l’école de dentisterie.
Lors de ce trajet bien particulier vers l’ouest, les passagers semblent plus agités qu’à l’habitude, surtout à partir du moment où le train s’immobilise au milieu des montagnes, bloqué durant des jours. Soudain, les secrets des uns et des autres sont exposés au grand jour, et la frontière entre la réalité et le rêve commence à se brouiller pour le pauvre Baxter, qui n’a pas dormi depuis des lustres. Sans parler de la découverte d’une dangereuse carte postale représentant deux hommes enlacés, qui réactive des souvenirs enfouis et des désirs interdits. Conserver l’objet met son poste en péril. Mais il n’arrive pas à s’en départir.
Avec Le porteur de nuit, Suzette Mayr fait revivre une époque longtemps négligée de l’histoire des communautés noires et queers, à travers le récit haletant et halluciné, magique et singulier, d’un inoubliable oublié nommé Baxter.
Lors de ce trajet bien particulier vers l’ouest, les passagers semblent plus agités qu’à l’habitude, surtout à partir du moment où le train s’immobilise au milieu des montagnes, bloqué durant des jours. Soudain, les secrets des uns et des autres sont exposés au grand jour, et la frontière entre la réalité et le rêve commence à se brouiller pour le pauvre Baxter, qui n’a pas dormi depuis des lustres. Sans parler de la découverte d’une dangereuse carte postale représentant deux hommes enlacés, qui réactive des souvenirs enfouis et des désirs interdits. Conserver l’objet met son poste en péril. Mais il n’arrive pas à s’en départir.
Avec Le porteur de nuit, Suzette Mayr fait revivre une époque longtemps négligée de l’histoire des communautés noires et queers, à travers le récit haletant et halluciné, magique et singulier, d’un inoubliable oublié nommé Baxter.
249 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 27, 2022
656 people are currently reading
7158 people want to read
About the author
Suzette Mayr
17 books155 followersSuzette Mayr is the author of five novels including her most recent, Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall. Her fourth novel, Monoceros, won the ReLit Award and the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize, was long-listed for the 2011 Giller Prize, nominated for a Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction and the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction, and included on The Globe and Mail’s 100 Best Books of 2011.
Her first novel, Moon Honey, was shortlisted for the Writers Guild of Alberta Best First Book and Best Novel prizes. The Widows, her second novel, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book in the Canadian-Caribbean region.
Mayr is past president of the Writers' Guild of Alberta and teaches creative writing in the English Department at the University of Calgary where she was the 2002-2003 Markin-Flanagan writer-in-residence.
Her first novel, Moon Honey, was shortlisted for the Writers Guild of Alberta Best First Book and Best Novel prizes. The Widows, her second novel, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book in the Canadian-Caribbean region.
Mayr is past president of the Writers' Guild of Alberta and teaches creative writing in the English Department at the University of Calgary where she was the 2002-2003 Markin-Flanagan writer-in-residence.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,236 reviews
May 17, 2024
3.5* rounded up
Shortlisted for The Dublin Literary Award 2024
What an original story. The more I read the more I get bored with the same themes and settings. I like historical fiction who teaches me about people/places/events that I am not familiar with. This novel touched a theme that I never knew I wanted to know about which was welcomed. However, it was fascinating until it lost momentum and got very boring. More on that later.
The novel is set in in Canada, in 1929. Baxter is a night porter and is bound on a train who goes from one end of the country to the other. He is a black man who dreams to be a dentist. Unfortunately, he has to work as a porter in order to raise the money he needs for school. There weren’t many job options for black people at that time so he had to pick what he could. In addition to being black, he is also unlucky enough to be queer.
The trip west is supposed to take three days but due to a landslide, the journey takes two days longer. There is enough time for the author to introduce us to Baxter’s history and internal conflicts with his race and sexuality. We also learn more about the other porters and the passengers. As people get bored by the extra waiting time, masks fall and the passengers become more unruly Poor Baxter suffers from sleep deprivation and starts to hallucinate. It becomes more and more difficult for him to behave as he should (transparent and obedient) and to juggle his chores with his true self.
I liked the writing, the setting, most of the characters and the social and racial commentary. However, midway through the novel, I got tired of the characters with their interaction and useless talk and just wanted to get it done with it. The novel became interesting again and the ending was moderately satisfying.
Shortlisted for The Dublin Literary Award 2024
What an original story. The more I read the more I get bored with the same themes and settings. I like historical fiction who teaches me about people/places/events that I am not familiar with. This novel touched a theme that I never knew I wanted to know about which was welcomed. However, it was fascinating until it lost momentum and got very boring. More on that later.
The novel is set in in Canada, in 1929. Baxter is a night porter and is bound on a train who goes from one end of the country to the other. He is a black man who dreams to be a dentist. Unfortunately, he has to work as a porter in order to raise the money he needs for school. There weren’t many job options for black people at that time so he had to pick what he could. In addition to being black, he is also unlucky enough to be queer.
The trip west is supposed to take three days but due to a landslide, the journey takes two days longer. There is enough time for the author to introduce us to Baxter’s history and internal conflicts with his race and sexuality. We also learn more about the other porters and the passengers. As people get bored by the extra waiting time, masks fall and the passengers become more unruly Poor Baxter suffers from sleep deprivation and starts to hallucinate. It becomes more and more difficult for him to behave as he should (transparent and obedient) and to juggle his chores with his true self.
I liked the writing, the setting, most of the characters and the social and racial commentary. However, midway through the novel, I got tired of the characters with their interaction and useless talk and just wanted to get it done with it. The novel became interesting again and the ending was moderately satisfying.
November 20, 2022
According to the blurb, this book is a stunning accomplishment.
Perhaps they are right, because this one won the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
But, winner or not, I was very disappointed.
I liked the premise but I didn’t like its delivery. I was not enthralled with the development of the storyline and I was not fascinated by the writing.
If I must be honest, I was bored the whole time.
Fortunately this is a small book (52k words) and it shouldn’t take more than 4 hours to finish it.
PS. I read the book while playing the audiobook. This time the audiobook did not help my enjoyment.
For audiobook lovers, be warned that the quality is terrible. The sound is distorted or muffled, especially if played at normal speed.
I do not recommend the audiobook.
I played with the settings (treble, bass…) in my cordless headphones (Bose!) without finding a pleasant result. Playing at 3.0x was better, but still…
Perhaps they are right, because this one won the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
But, winner or not, I was very disappointed.
I liked the premise but I didn’t like its delivery. I was not enthralled with the development of the storyline and I was not fascinated by the writing.
If I must be honest, I was bored the whole time.
Fortunately this is a small book (52k words) and it shouldn’t take more than 4 hours to finish it.
PS. I read the book while playing the audiobook. This time the audiobook did not help my enjoyment.
For audiobook lovers, be warned that the quality is terrible. The sound is distorted or muffled, especially if played at normal speed.
I do not recommend the audiobook.
I played with the settings (treble, bass…) in my cordless headphones (Bose!) without finding a pleasant result. Playing at 3.0x was better, but still…
October 5, 2022
This book has been short-listed for the prestigious Giller Prize. Congratulations to the author, Suzette Mayr, who writes convincingly from the viewpoint of a gay Black man. Baxter is a sleeping car porter on a train crossing the country from Montreal to Vancouver. It is a long and claustrophobic journey. The year is 1929, and Baxter is working in a job customarily assigned to Black men, as few other jobs are available to them. It is essential that a porter aims at being invisible and nameless as a person and must not react negatively when the privileged, demanding white passengers refer to all porters as George. The book has a prevailing mood of gloom, hopelessness and melancholy.
The story is told through the musings and recollections of Baxter and his dread of being dismissed from his job. However unjustified, any complaint from a passenger or a miscount of towels or bedding can lead to demerits. When demerits reach a certain number of infractions, the porter is fired. They can also be instantly fired with no recourse.
Baxter thinks back to his boyhood when he was criticized by his family for effeminate mannerisms and recalls his few fleeting homosexual encounters. He must avoid the approaches of predatory male passengers. When cleaning a vacant room, he finds an obscene French postcard portraying two men in a homosexual act. He knows if he is found to have it in his possession, he will be fired, but cannot bring himself to destroy it.
His work is exhausting. Baxter is experiencing hallucinations due to sleep deprivation. He wants to attend dental school, an unforeseeable goal due to small tips in the form of coins or no tips at all. He tries to save money by skipping the meagre meals, usually leftovers, and avoiding meals with fellow porters during stopovers,and often falling asleep at inappropriate times, interrupted by his visions. He considers the teeth of travellers and porters and longs to be able to repair their dental problems. He overhears conversations among passengers, revealing their personalities, foibles, and reasons for travelling. A small girl has begun to cling to him as a way to avoid her grandmother. He wants to finish a book of weird science fiction he is reading but will probably fall into a troubled sleep instead.
The train becomes stranded for two days near a dangerous gorge. It overlooks the unnerving sight of a train that was destroyed when it fell off the tracks. During this time, the passengers are allowed out from the confinement of the train, and some of their secrets are revealed as well as the true identities of a few. When the train pulls into its destination, Vancouver, Baxter worries about being fired. His ownership of the naughty postcard has become known to all and has been reported. Must he lose his job and give up his dreams of attending dental school?
I found it difficult to engage with the story early on. I found its mood oppressive, with overwhelming anguish and heartache. Once I got into the story, I appreciated how well the story was told and how it reflected a historic time in our country.
The story is told through the musings and recollections of Baxter and his dread of being dismissed from his job. However unjustified, any complaint from a passenger or a miscount of towels or bedding can lead to demerits. When demerits reach a certain number of infractions, the porter is fired. They can also be instantly fired with no recourse.
Baxter thinks back to his boyhood when he was criticized by his family for effeminate mannerisms and recalls his few fleeting homosexual encounters. He must avoid the approaches of predatory male passengers. When cleaning a vacant room, he finds an obscene French postcard portraying two men in a homosexual act. He knows if he is found to have it in his possession, he will be fired, but cannot bring himself to destroy it.
His work is exhausting. Baxter is experiencing hallucinations due to sleep deprivation. He wants to attend dental school, an unforeseeable goal due to small tips in the form of coins or no tips at all. He tries to save money by skipping the meagre meals, usually leftovers, and avoiding meals with fellow porters during stopovers,and often falling asleep at inappropriate times, interrupted by his visions. He considers the teeth of travellers and porters and longs to be able to repair their dental problems. He overhears conversations among passengers, revealing their personalities, foibles, and reasons for travelling. A small girl has begun to cling to him as a way to avoid her grandmother. He wants to finish a book of weird science fiction he is reading but will probably fall into a troubled sleep instead.
The train becomes stranded for two days near a dangerous gorge. It overlooks the unnerving sight of a train that was destroyed when it fell off the tracks. During this time, the passengers are allowed out from the confinement of the train, and some of their secrets are revealed as well as the true identities of a few. When the train pulls into its destination, Vancouver, Baxter worries about being fired. His ownership of the naughty postcard has become known to all and has been reported. Must he lose his job and give up his dreams of attending dental school?
I found it difficult to engage with the story early on. I found its mood oppressive, with overwhelming anguish and heartache. Once I got into the story, I appreciated how well the story was told and how it reflected a historic time in our country.
October 22, 2022
The Sleeping Car Porter is a remarkable read. It follows a short period in the life of a Black sleeping car porter, doing cross-Canada runs. The author's careful, detailed research shows in engaging, non-pedantic ways. These runs took days, and except for quick naps in the middle of the night when porters covered for each other, there were no breaks. This was a 24/7 job. Porters ate in a separate—and much humbler—dining room than passengers and had to pay for their food, wrestling with their own hunger and financial reality as they decided whether this could be an eggs day or if it would be porridge once again.
The pace of this work and the demand that porters be attentive, cheerful, and deferential was overwhelming. Get people on and off at each stop, find the cup of coffee or whatever small comfort a passenger wants the moment it's asked for, being called "George" regardless of one's real name, picking up passengers' shoes two pairs at a time every night and spending hours polishing all of them, becoming a de facto nanny while doing all of this, and taking the blame for any difficulty, whether or not the porter has any ability to address it. The rail line ran on a demerit system. When a porter got to one hundred demerits, he was fired—and those demerits never expired, so all porters were shadowed by their cumulative score and a knowledge that they would lose these jobs.
Baxter, our central character, is a closeted gay man deeply aware of his consequent vulnerability, which adds to the tasks and potential terrors of his work. During our time spent with him, we sink into and share his exhaustion, watch as he wrestles to prevent waking dreams from interfering with his responsibilities. We see both the comfort and threat of coworkers. And we see what happens to those who talk of a union.
What is most remarkable to me about this book is the way Mayr's writing creates and maintains the pace of Baxter's workaday activities. It's fast. One word after another, one phrase after another, all of it beating/throbbing to the rhythm of the rails. Never before have I had such a sense of the writer setting a pace for me and forcing me to maintain it.
If you're interested in railway history, queer history, tales of working-class lives, historical fiction, magical realism, or the overwhelming rush of a style that carries you along as you read, you will want to seek out The Sleeping Car Porter. Seriously. Seriously seriously. Mayr has given us a rare and remarkable work of factually informed and stylistically driven fiction.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own.
The pace of this work and the demand that porters be attentive, cheerful, and deferential was overwhelming. Get people on and off at each stop, find the cup of coffee or whatever small comfort a passenger wants the moment it's asked for, being called "George" regardless of one's real name, picking up passengers' shoes two pairs at a time every night and spending hours polishing all of them, becoming a de facto nanny while doing all of this, and taking the blame for any difficulty, whether or not the porter has any ability to address it. The rail line ran on a demerit system. When a porter got to one hundred demerits, he was fired—and those demerits never expired, so all porters were shadowed by their cumulative score and a knowledge that they would lose these jobs.
Baxter, our central character, is a closeted gay man deeply aware of his consequent vulnerability, which adds to the tasks and potential terrors of his work. During our time spent with him, we sink into and share his exhaustion, watch as he wrestles to prevent waking dreams from interfering with his responsibilities. We see both the comfort and threat of coworkers. And we see what happens to those who talk of a union.
What is most remarkable to me about this book is the way Mayr's writing creates and maintains the pace of Baxter's workaday activities. It's fast. One word after another, one phrase after another, all of it beating/throbbing to the rhythm of the rails. Never before have I had such a sense of the writer setting a pace for me and forcing me to maintain it.
If you're interested in railway history, queer history, tales of working-class lives, historical fiction, magical realism, or the overwhelming rush of a style that carries you along as you read, you will want to seek out The Sleeping Car Porter. Seriously. Seriously seriously. Mayr has given us a rare and remarkable work of factually informed and stylistically driven fiction.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own.
May 15, 2023
This story takes place on the Trans Canada train that, at the time of this story, traveled between Montreal and Vancouver, British Columbia. Nowadays, it only goes from Toronto to Vancouver, the Montreal leg is a separate train. I've taken this train (from Vancouver to Toronto, then added the Montreal leg), so I have been the Sleeping Car passenger.
Suzette Mayr did an excellent job of capturing that restlessness, anxiousness and hunger of young men just starting out in their adult lives. Dreaming of a certain type of life, fear of getting stuck in a dead-end job with abusive management, fear of getting fired from that dead-end job, and trying to figure out their sexual lives and place in the world. I liked Baxter, the main character.
This story seems to take place in the late 192os-early 1930s. No talk of WWII, Talkies were just becoming popular, and there is no indications of the Great Depression, which did impact Canada (although less than it did the USA.) Racism was different in Canada but still existed. There was a segregation but it was more benign that that in the American South. Homosexuality was illegal.
Mayr explores all of these topics and how they impact Baxter as he caters to the passengers in his assigned sleeping car. The synopsis seems to imply the delay in the journey caused by a landslide across the tracks drives what happens during the journey but it is just the climax of what has been building from the start.
It is a slice of life story and, in a sense, a locked room story, since all the characters are tied to the train for most of the story. It is not a thriller. It is not a romance. It is for the most part a quiet story and in the end that is why I gave it 4 stars. It was maybe a little too quiet for my current mood. That said, it is a short read and still worth your time if you are interested in the subject matter.
TRIGGER WARNING: No, not the sex parts. They are tastefully handled. It is the dentistry. Baxter is obsessed with teeth and dental health so if that bothers you, be prepared or pass on this story.
Suzette Mayr did an excellent job of capturing that restlessness, anxiousness and hunger of young men just starting out in their adult lives. Dreaming of a certain type of life, fear of getting stuck in a dead-end job with abusive management, fear of getting fired from that dead-end job, and trying to figure out their sexual lives and place in the world. I liked Baxter, the main character.
This story seems to take place in the late 192os-early 1930s. No talk of WWII, Talkies were just becoming popular, and there is no indications of the Great Depression, which did impact Canada (although less than it did the USA.) Racism was different in Canada but still existed. There was a segregation but it was more benign that that in the American South. Homosexuality was illegal.
Mayr explores all of these topics and how they impact Baxter as he caters to the passengers in his assigned sleeping car. The synopsis seems to imply the delay in the journey caused by a landslide across the tracks drives what happens during the journey but it is just the climax of what has been building from the start.
It is a slice of life story and, in a sense, a locked room story, since all the characters are tied to the train for most of the story. It is not a thriller. It is not a romance. It is for the most part a quiet story and in the end that is why I gave it 4 stars. It was maybe a little too quiet for my current mood. That said, it is a short read and still worth your time if you are interested in the subject matter.
TRIGGER WARNING: No, not the sex parts. They are tastefully handled. It is the dentistry. Baxter is obsessed with teeth and dental health so if that bothers you, be prepared or pass on this story.
January 20, 2023
This book is a fascinating slice of Canadian history… a fictional story of the sleeping car porters who worked for the Canadian National Railways in the early 20th century.
Sleeping car porter was one of the few jobs available to Black men at the time. And it was tough work. They had to be at the beck and call of every wealthy passenger as they criss-crossed this nation in style. The hours were long—sometimes days at a time, with no sleep—and the wages were small. They were treated poorly by their bosses, and often by the passengers, as racism was still prevalent. Despite this, they had to be on their very best behaviour at all times or risk losing demerit points or being fired. It was an incredibly stressful job, but tips were essential to subsidise the pay, so smile they must… throughout it all.
Baxter was a porter who, early in his career, found a dentistry manual left behind on the train. Since then, he’d been obsessed with teeth and dreamed of becoming a dentist. When he looked at people it was their teeth he noticed above all, and he could diagnose their problem instantly—after all, by now he’d memorised that dentistry manual. As the story begins, Baxter had saved every penny he could, and very nearly had the $1000 tuition needed for dental school. Just a few dollars more!🤞
The book takes place over about a 4-day period on a trans-continental journey. Baxter had always been a poor sleeper, but during this particular trip he had no sleep at all and was beginning to see things that weren’t there—couldn’t possibly be there. Or could they?😉
The story is exciting, full of fun and mystery, seances, talent shows, deception, frivolity... you name it. It’s an absolute delight to read, and I most highly recommend it!
5 You-won’t-believe-what-happens-next stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sleeping car porter was one of the few jobs available to Black men at the time. And it was tough work. They had to be at the beck and call of every wealthy passenger as they criss-crossed this nation in style. The hours were long—sometimes days at a time, with no sleep—and the wages were small. They were treated poorly by their bosses, and often by the passengers, as racism was still prevalent. Despite this, they had to be on their very best behaviour at all times or risk losing demerit points or being fired. It was an incredibly stressful job, but tips were essential to subsidise the pay, so smile they must… throughout it all.
Baxter was a porter who, early in his career, found a dentistry manual left behind on the train. Since then, he’d been obsessed with teeth and dreamed of becoming a dentist. When he looked at people it was their teeth he noticed above all, and he could diagnose their problem instantly—after all, by now he’d memorised that dentistry manual. As the story begins, Baxter had saved every penny he could, and very nearly had the $1000 tuition needed for dental school. Just a few dollars more!🤞
The book takes place over about a 4-day period on a trans-continental journey. Baxter had always been a poor sleeper, but during this particular trip he had no sleep at all and was beginning to see things that weren’t there—couldn’t possibly be there. Or could they?😉
The story is exciting, full of fun and mystery, seances, talent shows, deception, frivolity... you name it. It’s an absolute delight to read, and I most highly recommend it!
5 You-won’t-believe-what-happens-next stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
April 25, 2023
Every now and then I’m grateful that a prize did its work and led me to a great book. In this case being that this book won the Giller Prize, which, quite frankly, I don’t really follow; and coincidentally saw its win as a piece of news with a short description of the book that fascinated me.
This is a lovely book about a Black gay train porter, Baxter, working (being terribly overworked) in 1920s Canada. It’s the kind of work that excavates what’s overlooked, forgotten, buried, and ignored, and turns it into a poignant rich tale. I’m amazed with how the writer was able to take several themes difficult to explore in fiction all at once: homophobia and the devastation it wreaks; racism, in all its subtle and not-so-subtle manifestations; horrible working conditions the working class endures to earn a meagre living; the plight of the immigrant, and all else in between and intertwined.
I remember reading Baldwin talking about how difficult it was to write a Black and gay novel when he was asked about Giovanni's Room, after it followed Go Tell It on the Mountain, and why the book’s main characters were white. Baldwin went on to write a book with a Black gay main character later on, Just Above My Head: A Novel, which I should, and plan to, read later. Undoubtedly it’s easier to be entrapped in situations where the story can turn into a blatant moral tale with the book serving as little other than political themes with characters and the plot given little flesh and taking the supplementary position in what would have been better suited as non-fiction. Which isn’t to mean that socio-political themes can’t be interweaved well into fiction; some of my favourite books carry these themes (all books do but that’s another conversation) and I tend to seek out books that do.
Baxter, our protagonist, saves up the spare earnings he gets working almost all day and night in service of the passengers on the train so that he can go to school to become a dentist. He is lonely with unfulfilled desire, and acting on his desire could mean the loss of his job and possibly jail time, and, as is the norm in such cases, finds release in few seedy encounters, having little in form of companionship. So, a pitiable state. Despite this Baxter is still empathetic, caring, thoughtful; a character who is very easy to love and root for.
That most of this book takes place in a train, however, made for boring stretches. Minutiae of the responsibilities of porters and workings and schedules of trains, which was well researched I must add, and impressively too, was just not interesting to me and I preferred when we slipped into Baxter’s mind and past. The passengers on the train as well, petulant, annoying, disregarding, and really not that different from a lot of service seekers or clients a century later, weren’t interesting either even when they did help to move the story with their ridiculous and even scandalous affairs. I guess I just loved Baxter and wanted the story to completely remain with him which is selfish of me in a way, but what a wonderful story all the same.
This is a lovely book about a Black gay train porter, Baxter, working (being terribly overworked) in 1920s Canada. It’s the kind of work that excavates what’s overlooked, forgotten, buried, and ignored, and turns it into a poignant rich tale. I’m amazed with how the writer was able to take several themes difficult to explore in fiction all at once: homophobia and the devastation it wreaks; racism, in all its subtle and not-so-subtle manifestations; horrible working conditions the working class endures to earn a meagre living; the plight of the immigrant, and all else in between and intertwined.
I remember reading Baldwin talking about how difficult it was to write a Black and gay novel when he was asked about Giovanni's Room, after it followed Go Tell It on the Mountain, and why the book’s main characters were white. Baldwin went on to write a book with a Black gay main character later on, Just Above My Head: A Novel, which I should, and plan to, read later. Undoubtedly it’s easier to be entrapped in situations where the story can turn into a blatant moral tale with the book serving as little other than political themes with characters and the plot given little flesh and taking the supplementary position in what would have been better suited as non-fiction. Which isn’t to mean that socio-political themes can’t be interweaved well into fiction; some of my favourite books carry these themes (all books do but that’s another conversation) and I tend to seek out books that do.
Baxter, our protagonist, saves up the spare earnings he gets working almost all day and night in service of the passengers on the train so that he can go to school to become a dentist. He is lonely with unfulfilled desire, and acting on his desire could mean the loss of his job and possibly jail time, and, as is the norm in such cases, finds release in few seedy encounters, having little in form of companionship. So, a pitiable state. Despite this Baxter is still empathetic, caring, thoughtful; a character who is very easy to love and root for.
That most of this book takes place in a train, however, made for boring stretches. Minutiae of the responsibilities of porters and workings and schedules of trains, which was well researched I must add, and impressively too, was just not interesting to me and I preferred when we slipped into Baxter’s mind and past. The passengers on the train as well, petulant, annoying, disregarding, and really not that different from a lot of service seekers or clients a century later, weren’t interesting either even when they did help to move the story with their ridiculous and even scandalous affairs. I guess I just loved Baxter and wanted the story to completely remain with him which is selfish of me in a way, but what a wonderful story all the same.
May 8, 2023
It’s Canada, 1929, Baxter’s employed as a sleeping-car porter on long-distance trains but he dreams of becoming a dentist. In his all-too-brief breaks he reads snatches of science fiction, visions of a world beyond this one. Recruited from the Caribbean like so many others, his feelings of dislocation are intensified by his position as both Black and gay. Suzette Mayr’s novel was inspired by her desire to recreate lost queer and Black histories and unearth neglected chapters of Canada’s past. Her narrative is a meticulous recreation of the lives of the countless Black porters who laboured under a painfully exploitative system founded on fear, leaving them dependent on the whims of their mostly wealthy, mostly white passengers. Baxter’s job is modelled on America’s Pullman porters, referred to as “George’s boys” after Pullman himself, many also routinely addressed as “George” a means of robbing them of any sense of their individuality or humanity: expected to endure humiliations, and maintain levels of servility, reminiscent of slavery.
Mayr’s book’s based on years of research and Baxter’s a convincing creation. I found the story most impressive when it focused solely on him: perpetually exhausted, he hallucinates from lack of sleep, while the train company’s refusal to provide for porters means he can barely afford to eat on board the train. There are some marvellous stretches of breathless, vivid prose which echo the relentless pace of Baxter’s duties, the sheer exhaustion of complying with punitive regulations and catering to his passengers’ seemingly ceaseless demands. But there were also sections I found less compelling, particularly the interactions between passengers after Baxter’s train is massively delayed by a landslide. It sometimes felt as if Mayr had taken what could have been devastatingly powerful as a short story and unnecessarily stretched it out. I also found aspects of Baxter’s ongoing fascination with dentistry and teeth a little tiring. Although, I also enjoyed elements of Mayr’s attention to detail: Baxter’s strange ‘figments’ glimpsed after days without solid sleep, which he interprets by referring back to popular magazines of the era like Weird Tales.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Dialogue Books for an ARC
Mayr’s book’s based on years of research and Baxter’s a convincing creation. I found the story most impressive when it focused solely on him: perpetually exhausted, he hallucinates from lack of sleep, while the train company’s refusal to provide for porters means he can barely afford to eat on board the train. There are some marvellous stretches of breathless, vivid prose which echo the relentless pace of Baxter’s duties, the sheer exhaustion of complying with punitive regulations and catering to his passengers’ seemingly ceaseless demands. But there were also sections I found less compelling, particularly the interactions between passengers after Baxter’s train is massively delayed by a landslide. It sometimes felt as if Mayr had taken what could have been devastatingly powerful as a short story and unnecessarily stretched it out. I also found aspects of Baxter’s ongoing fascination with dentistry and teeth a little tiring. Although, I also enjoyed elements of Mayr’s attention to detail: Baxter’s strange ‘figments’ glimpsed after days without solid sleep, which he interprets by referring back to popular magazines of the era like Weird Tales.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Dialogue Books for an ARC
January 20, 2023
Morning. A newly birthing sun cracks through the trees and lances straight into his blazing red eyes. Baxter is a sleeping car porter. A sleepy car porter. A sleepy porter he is car. Car sleepy. Porter. Sleeping. He giggles.
Winner of Canada’s richest literary award, the Giller Prize, The Sleeping Car Porter took me a while to warm up to. Part historical fiction, part social commentary — all told in a hallucinatory blur of visions and sexual longing and sci-fi fantasy — at first, it didn’t seem real enough to feel true. But as the stakes ramped up for the main character — a young gay Black man working in one of the few (potentially) well-paying fields open to him in 1929 Canada — I finally forged an emotional connection to the material, and by the end, the hallucinatory blur felt like the only way that author Suzette Mayr could have possibly allowed me to truly feel inside this character’s absurd existence. Happy to have read this and delighted it won the big prize.
Hands reach toward him, grab at him for a lift up, grab his coat pocket, wave in his face. A sea swell of passengers, spilling toward his car; a maelstrom of departure-time panic. R. T. Baxter, a dentist-to-be, man who longs to lance gums and extract pathological third molars, standing, here, next to this train, caught in this hurricane. Drowsy already.
From the first passage we’re told that Baxter — a Caribbean transplant to Canada, in search of a better life — has been saving his money for years to go to Dentistry school, and with less than a hundred dollars left to earn, he can’t wait to end his days as a sleeping car porter. We learn that this position entails being on-call twenty-four hours a day to well-off white folks who treat the Black porters like servants or worse (calling them all “boy” or "George", leaving awful messes for them to clean, demanding water or babysitting services in the middle of the night when one might catch a short nap), and a porter like Baxter must smile and obey every piddling order: not only does he earn the majority of his money through tips, but any complaint from a passenger (deserved or not) leads to demerits and too many demerits leads to firing. As Baxter prepares to leave on a run from Montreal to Vancouver — on the “fastest train on the continent” — he’s assigned a bunch of hard-to-please-looking passengers, and as he can only earn ten more demerits before he’s let go (and he’s oh so close with his savings!) it’s a mounting disaster for him when the train is stopped in the Rocky Mountains by a mudslide and the passengers want to hold him personally responsible for the delay.
Layered onto this increasingly tense plot, Baxter’s sleep deprivation (made worse by the delay) leads to hallucinations that usually include teeth (based on some studying he’s already done with a found dental textbook), fairly graphic sexual (in language, not acts) memories/longings, and scenes right out of the science fiction novels he loves to read:
Baxter read and reread his books and magazines about the deep sea and Martians and outer space and time travel and immortal beings and phantoms. He ate alone. He ironed his shirts. He shined his shoes so that they glittered like stars when he walked. He circled the planet Earth in his spaceship, he flew up high on the back of giant scarabs from Jupiter, he travelled the oceans in submarines. He rested in the cellar of his castle in his box of dirt, friends with vermin. He sat on his chair in the speeding train, his back perfectly straight, and he slept with his eyes open, hallucinations draping his face, a tittering insect instead of a heart.
The dehumanising manner in which Baxter is treated by the passengers (and the railroad employing him) is both horrible and believable and I welcome historical fiction that asks us to confront such an ugly chapter from our past. And while at first I wasn’t sure if the sexual content fit in with the bigger picture — memories of cruising in parks and alleys, money slyly offered in a public washroom, pornography that demands to be examined again and again: is this what the grey-haired ladies who pick up every Giller winner are hoping to find between these covers? — I have to admit that being a gay Black immigrant in 1929 Canada is a big, challenging package that deserves to be examined in its entirety; just how was one expected to find love when it was against the law? Each facet of Baxter’s existence seems to be working against the fulfilment of his dreams and desires, and as the hours and days at a standstill drag on — as the passengers become angrier and Baxter becomes ever more delusional from sleep deprivation — I truly did feel empathy for his struggles; perhaps literally placing us in a fantasy world was the only way for Mayr to demonstrate how surreal our actual world can be. I’m glad I stuck with this after feeling lukewarm in the beginning, and again, I am pleased that Mayr has been celebrated for what she created here.
— My aunt Arimenta, says Baxter, carefully — always used to say, Baxter, she’d say, hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.
October 27, 2022
2.5
Stories on trains shouldn't feel so tedious. That this one was for large sections prevented me from getting super engaged with the story. The writing felt stilted and lacked the vibrancy I expect from a Giller shortlisted book
Stories on trains shouldn't feel so tedious. That this one was for large sections prevented me from getting super engaged with the story. The writing felt stilted and lacked the vibrancy I expect from a Giller shortlisted book
March 26, 2024
Shortlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award
Shortlisted for the 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize, US & Canada
Winner of the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize in Canada
Baxter read and reread his books and magazines about the deep sea and Martians and outer space and time travel and immortal beings and phantoms. He ate alone. He ironed his shirts. He shined his shoes so they glittered like stars when he walked. He circled the planet Earth in his spaceship, he flew up high on the back of giant scarabs from Jupiter, he travelled the oceans in submarines. He rested in the cellar of his castle in his box of dirt, friends with vermin. He sat on his chair in the speeding train, his back perfectly straight, and he slept with his eyes open, hallucinations draping his face, a tittering insect instead of a heart.
Edwin Drew: the best Porter Instructor in the country, he played poker like he invented it, slapping down his cards and shouting himself into a win.
- Behave on a train like an automaton at a carnival, Edwin Drew once said, straightening Baxter's collar. - Find that smile, the bigger the better, and push the button, turn it on, but don't Uncle Tom it. Don't grin. Sing, dance, do magic tricks if they ask you. Maybe other things if the money's worth it, but don't Uncle Toni. So much easier, so little fuss. Bigger tips. Sometimes I've sung, sometimes I've danced. Sometimes I've been ridden like a horse. So what? The tips I get? So what?
Suzette Mayr's The Sleeping Car Porter is published by the independent Canadian press Coach House books whose fascinating history can be seen on their website and who are, in their words, still pushing at the frontiers of the book with our innovative fiction, poetry, film and drama, and select non-fiction.
The book is based around the experience of the African-American sleeping car porters who served on the North American railway system particularly in the 1920s-1960s period.
This is a both a deeply researched and a highly evocative book, and would be fine historical fiction in its own right, but what elevates it is the central character of Baxter. Baxter came from the Caribbean to Canada hoping to study dentistry, but is working as a porter to save up the funds need to enter medical school, his progress towards a goal a constant struggle between the tips from grateful passengers versus the fact that he has to buy his own food on the trains, is fined for lost items (usually pilfered by the same passengers). And he needs to accumulate enough funds before he loses his job from accumulating too many 'demerits', penalty points given at the end of each trip for a variety of misdemeanours, often resulting from complaints from the passengers who treat the porters as automatons, taking no account that they literally have nowhere to sleep on the several-day journeys. Indeed most passengers refer to Baxter and his fellow porters on the trains as 'George' after George Pullman (of eponymous sleeping car fame), following the slave system where a slave was called after their owner.
Baxter also has a rich but hidden inner-life, a fan of science-fiction and prone to sleeplessness induced hallucinations. And as a queer black man his sexuality is doubly threatening to the establishment.
The novel largely centres on one cross-country train journey, which should have taken three days but which is extended when the line is blocked by a landslide. There is an intriguing cast of characters in Baxter's coach, including a vaudeville star, a spiritualist/medium, a recently bereaved child, two squabbling businessmen, and a girl travelling to meet her fiancé (who has actually jilted her by telegram) and a professor with a secret, each with their own stories and who interact with Baxter in a variety of ways. There is also a rumour that there is a famous author on board, which at one point gets the sci-fi loving Baxter very excited:
— Maybe the name of the passenger actually starts with an E, says Templeton. — I believe it's an E. We work for the finest railway company on the continent, and indeed in the world. Correct, Baxter
— E. E. Smith? asks Baxter.
— Yes, Smith! says Templeton.
—Who wrote The Skylark of Space? Baxter says, trying not to shout because what if it's true?
Sadly it isn't the legendary 'Doc' but a writer of romantic fiction.
When Baxter discovers a postcard secreted in the toilets, with a picture of two men having sex, and hides it on his person, the reader knows, in Chekhovian fashion, that this will ultimately propel a denouement.
A rich, but also commendably tightly-written, and impressive work.
Shortlisted for the 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize, US & Canada
Winner of the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize in Canada
Baxter read and reread his books and magazines about the deep sea and Martians and outer space and time travel and immortal beings and phantoms. He ate alone. He ironed his shirts. He shined his shoes so they glittered like stars when he walked. He circled the planet Earth in his spaceship, he flew up high on the back of giant scarabs from Jupiter, he travelled the oceans in submarines. He rested in the cellar of his castle in his box of dirt, friends with vermin. He sat on his chair in the speeding train, his back perfectly straight, and he slept with his eyes open, hallucinations draping his face, a tittering insect instead of a heart.
Edwin Drew: the best Porter Instructor in the country, he played poker like he invented it, slapping down his cards and shouting himself into a win.
- Behave on a train like an automaton at a carnival, Edwin Drew once said, straightening Baxter's collar. - Find that smile, the bigger the better, and push the button, turn it on, but don't Uncle Tom it. Don't grin. Sing, dance, do magic tricks if they ask you. Maybe other things if the money's worth it, but don't Uncle Toni. So much easier, so little fuss. Bigger tips. Sometimes I've sung, sometimes I've danced. Sometimes I've been ridden like a horse. So what? The tips I get? So what?
Suzette Mayr's The Sleeping Car Porter is published by the independent Canadian press Coach House books whose fascinating history can be seen on their website and who are, in their words, still pushing at the frontiers of the book with our innovative fiction, poetry, film and drama, and select non-fiction.
The book is based around the experience of the African-American sleeping car porters who served on the North American railway system particularly in the 1920s-1960s period.
This is a both a deeply researched and a highly evocative book, and would be fine historical fiction in its own right, but what elevates it is the central character of Baxter. Baxter came from the Caribbean to Canada hoping to study dentistry, but is working as a porter to save up the funds need to enter medical school, his progress towards a goal a constant struggle between the tips from grateful passengers versus the fact that he has to buy his own food on the trains, is fined for lost items (usually pilfered by the same passengers). And he needs to accumulate enough funds before he loses his job from accumulating too many 'demerits', penalty points given at the end of each trip for a variety of misdemeanours, often resulting from complaints from the passengers who treat the porters as automatons, taking no account that they literally have nowhere to sleep on the several-day journeys. Indeed most passengers refer to Baxter and his fellow porters on the trains as 'George' after George Pullman (of eponymous sleeping car fame), following the slave system where a slave was called after their owner.
Baxter also has a rich but hidden inner-life, a fan of science-fiction and prone to sleeplessness induced hallucinations. And as a queer black man his sexuality is doubly threatening to the establishment.
The novel largely centres on one cross-country train journey, which should have taken three days but which is extended when the line is blocked by a landslide. There is an intriguing cast of characters in Baxter's coach, including a vaudeville star, a spiritualist/medium, a recently bereaved child, two squabbling businessmen, and a girl travelling to meet her fiancé (who has actually jilted her by telegram) and a professor with a secret, each with their own stories and who interact with Baxter in a variety of ways. There is also a rumour that there is a famous author on board, which at one point gets the sci-fi loving Baxter very excited:
— Maybe the name of the passenger actually starts with an E, says Templeton. — I believe it's an E. We work for the finest railway company on the continent, and indeed in the world. Correct, Baxter
— E. E. Smith? asks Baxter.
— Yes, Smith! says Templeton.
—Who wrote The Skylark of Space? Baxter says, trying not to shout because what if it's true?
Sadly it isn't the legendary 'Doc' but a writer of romantic fiction.
When Baxter discovers a postcard secreted in the toilets, with a picture of two men having sex, and hides it on his person, the reader knows, in Chekhovian fashion, that this will ultimately propel a denouement.
A rich, but also commendably tightly-written, and impressive work.
May 7, 2024
It's 1929 (according to the back cover) and Baxter is a sleeping car porter on a cross-country train. Black men in Canada were often train porters, and —annoyingly— passengers called them all "George."
Baxter has his own dreams, and is sleep deprived. The result is a hallucinatory journey across the continent, a less rebellious trip than The SnowPiercer, Part 1 but no less class-ridden. Everyone's hopes and dreams are on display in this sleeping car.
Mayr is a wonderful writer, with a bent towards the satirical. The satire is quiet here, and the drama muted and claustrophobic. The result is an intimate portrait of an ordinary person one hundred years ago, someone who would have touched the lives of countless others while remaining almost anonymous himself. The complicated achievement here is this nameless "George" has been revealed as an individual, and this revelation is not without pain.
This novel was the winner of a major Canadian literary award (the Giller Prize).
Credited in the acknowledgements is a number of historical works, such as George Chauncey's Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940, and Black history, such as In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology.
Baxter has his own dreams, and is sleep deprived. The result is a hallucinatory journey across the continent, a less rebellious trip than The SnowPiercer, Part 1 but no less class-ridden. Everyone's hopes and dreams are on display in this sleeping car.
Mayr is a wonderful writer, with a bent towards the satirical. The satire is quiet here, and the drama muted and claustrophobic. The result is an intimate portrait of an ordinary person one hundred years ago, someone who would have touched the lives of countless others while remaining almost anonymous himself. The complicated achievement here is this nameless "George" has been revealed as an individual, and this revelation is not without pain.
This novel was the winner of a major Canadian literary award (the Giller Prize).
Credited in the acknowledgements is a number of historical works, such as George Chauncey's Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940, and Black history, such as In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology.
May 10, 2023
At the one-quarter mark, I was thinking this was a well-written, if plotless, character study; by the two-thirds point I was thinking that after all it had a surprising and interesting plot. And at the end it was somewhere in between.
It's fair to say this is a book with two different things going on.
On the one hand we have a historical novel about Baxter, a lonely young man, a Caribbean immigrant in Canada working the dehumanizing gig as a train porter, turning down beds for the super-wealthy on cross-country trains. It’s the 1920s and he’s poor, scrimping, and closeted (there’s no other choice) on a five-day Montreal-Vancouver run. His challenges are to save up the remaining hundred dollars he needs for dentistry school, not get fired, not die of sleep deprivation, finish his latest science fiction read, and keep some strange visions at bay.
In the later stages, we have an ensemble piece with the intersecting stories of many different train passengers as they remain trapped by a mudslide in a mountain path. Some of those visions of Baxter’s start to take on new meanings…
So on the one hand this is a conventional novel exploring themes of racism, classicism and homophobia. On the other, it is a potentially Murder on the Orient Express experience with, potentially, ghosts. I say potentially because this only gets off the ground in a slanting way, with plausible deniability at all times. I personally would have been delighted with slightly more of this, but Baxter is a well-drawn character and I was happy enough to go along with him and root for him. And it helped that the writing was strong and a pleasure to read.
The ending was a slight disappointment; a little too tidy. I was invested in Baxter's future happiness and so, it seems, was the author. I wasn’t altogether convinced by how things came together. I felt satisfied as a reader… but my inner critic cried foul. But why shouldn’t we have happy endings? I knocked my inner critic over the head and stuffed her under a sleeping berth on the train. But I suspect she may be haunting the Vancouver-Montreal line still.
Thanks to Netgalley and Dialogue Books for the ARC
It's fair to say this is a book with two different things going on.
On the one hand we have a historical novel about Baxter, a lonely young man, a Caribbean immigrant in Canada working the dehumanizing gig as a train porter, turning down beds for the super-wealthy on cross-country trains. It’s the 1920s and he’s poor, scrimping, and closeted (there’s no other choice) on a five-day Montreal-Vancouver run. His challenges are to save up the remaining hundred dollars he needs for dentistry school, not get fired, not die of sleep deprivation, finish his latest science fiction read, and keep some strange visions at bay.
In the later stages, we have an ensemble piece with the intersecting stories of many different train passengers as they remain trapped by a mudslide in a mountain path. Some of those visions of Baxter’s start to take on new meanings…
So on the one hand this is a conventional novel exploring themes of racism, classicism and homophobia. On the other, it is a potentially Murder on the Orient Express experience with, potentially, ghosts. I say potentially because this only gets off the ground in a slanting way, with plausible deniability at all times. I personally would have been delighted with slightly more of this, but Baxter is a well-drawn character and I was happy enough to go along with him and root for him. And it helped that the writing was strong and a pleasure to read.
The ending was a slight disappointment; a little too tidy. I was invested in Baxter's future happiness and so, it seems, was the author. I wasn’t altogether convinced by how things came together. I felt satisfied as a reader… but my inner critic cried foul. But why shouldn’t we have happy endings? I knocked my inner critic over the head and stuffed her under a sleeping berth on the train. But I suspect she may be haunting the Vancouver-Montreal line still.
Thanks to Netgalley and Dialogue Books for the ARC
October 9, 2022
This took me a little while to get into, but once it did, it wouldn’t let me go. Damn. The writing is dazzling and disorienting at the same time. A story that builds and builds, and feels more and more claustrophobic as it builds. Potent stuff.
March 14, 2024
It was ok.
The writing style was really pleasant but it failed to deliver any sense of tension or stake so while there was a plot it didn't feel like there was anything to get really invested in.
Worth reading for the quality of the prose and of the research the author put into her writing.
The writing style was really pleasant but it failed to deliver any sense of tension or stake so while there was a plot it didn't feel like there was anything to get really invested in.
Worth reading for the quality of the prose and of the research the author put into her writing.
March 7, 2024
My Name's Not George*
Review of the Coach House Books paperback (September 27, 2022) with reference to the Kindle eBook.
I missed reading The Sleeping Car Porter when it won the 2022 Giller Prize in Canada, but finally caught up to it through the Amnesty International Canada Book Club which featured it as its January/February 2024 selection, along with an author interview discussion.
The entire history of the luxury Pullman coaches on long distance trains in the USA and Canada and their intentional hiring of Black Americans and Canadians as porters to simulate the slavery / working class of the antebellum Southern USA was a shocking revelation about a subject of which I had previously known nothing. The amount of research done by Suzette Mayr was quite staggering and she has described it at length in her interviews about the book and in the reference material listed in its appendices.
Her story of Baxter, a Black Canadian porter serving on a Canadian cross-country rail journey brings all of this history to light as the man struggles with unruly demanding passengers, uncooperative fellow train employees, and his own closeted sexual urges. Baxter hopes to earn enough money to go to dentistry school and as he gets closer to his financial goal he is also beset by a more ominous target whereby his railroad employee demerits are nearing the point of employment dismissal. The dueling goal and target play out suspensefully throughout this compelling novel.
Footnote
I took the idea for the lede from the book title My name's not George: The story of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters : personal reminiscences of Stanley G. Grizzle (1998). Passengers would regularly use the generic name "George" (taken from the first name of the inventor of Pullman railroad cars) to address porters in order to avoid having to learn their actual names.
Trivia and Link
The online Giller Book Club featured an interview discussion with the author and you can watch the recorded zoom meeting here.
The Sleeping Car Porter was also featured as part of the 2024 Amnesty International Canada Book Club and you can read further about that and download a discussion guide here. The zoom meeting does not appear to have been recorded for archival viewing.
You can view a short documentary about the history of Pullman car porters on YouTube here.
Review of the Coach House Books paperback (September 27, 2022) with reference to the Kindle eBook.
I missed reading The Sleeping Car Porter when it won the 2022 Giller Prize in Canada, but finally caught up to it through the Amnesty International Canada Book Club which featured it as its January/February 2024 selection, along with an author interview discussion.
The entire history of the luxury Pullman coaches on long distance trains in the USA and Canada and their intentional hiring of Black Americans and Canadians as porters to simulate the slavery / working class of the antebellum Southern USA was a shocking revelation about a subject of which I had previously known nothing. The amount of research done by Suzette Mayr was quite staggering and she has described it at length in her interviews about the book and in the reference material listed in its appendices.
Her story of Baxter, a Black Canadian porter serving on a Canadian cross-country rail journey brings all of this history to light as the man struggles with unruly demanding passengers, uncooperative fellow train employees, and his own closeted sexual urges. Baxter hopes to earn enough money to go to dentistry school and as he gets closer to his financial goal he is also beset by a more ominous target whereby his railroad employee demerits are nearing the point of employment dismissal. The dueling goal and target play out suspensefully throughout this compelling novel.
Footnote
I took the idea for the lede from the book title My name's not George: The story of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters : personal reminiscences of Stanley G. Grizzle (1998). Passengers would regularly use the generic name "George" (taken from the first name of the inventor of Pullman railroad cars) to address porters in order to avoid having to learn their actual names.
Trivia and Link
The online Giller Book Club featured an interview discussion with the author and you can watch the recorded zoom meeting here.
The Sleeping Car Porter was also featured as part of the 2024 Amnesty International Canada Book Club and you can read further about that and download a discussion guide here. The zoom meeting does not appear to have been recorded for archival viewing.
You can view a short documentary about the history of Pullman car porters on YouTube here.
April 12, 2023
Winner of Canada’s prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize, this fascinating novel, set in 1929, puts meat on the bones of the cultural figure of the Black railway porter. Mayr creates an atmosphere of great tension, with our porter a gay man on a cross-Canadian run who’s fearful of losing his job and sleep-deprived to the point of hallucination. The writing is clean and the story is gripping. Five stars for sure.
August 23, 2024
"He worries that one day the lack of sleep will drive him into the lunatic asylum."
The year is 1929 and our protagonist is a queer Black man named Baxter who works as a sleeping car porter. What he wants is to go to dentistry school, but he needs to earn and save a lot of tips to make that dream a reality.
The Sleeping Car Porter often reads like a “day in the life” video because we see Baxter’s day unfolding in great detail. The list of his responsibilities is long, and he is granted very little sleep. In fact, he’s so sleep deprived that he starts seeing strange things. (Is he hallucinating? Or are they really there? You must keep reading to decide...)
We’re also given vivid and amusing portrayals of the people riding the train, who each earn their own nickname in Baxter’s mind. And of course, Baxter can’t help but observe inwardly the state of their teeth and what kind of dental work, if any, they need.
In terms of pacing, this book suitably reminded me of a long train ride. The story follows a steady rhythm throughout, but what drew me from one page to the next was Mayr's gorgeous writing style, which offers some of the most beautiful turns of phrase I've encountered since reading Maggie O'Farrell's books. Highly recommend.
The year is 1929 and our protagonist is a queer Black man named Baxter who works as a sleeping car porter. What he wants is to go to dentistry school, but he needs to earn and save a lot of tips to make that dream a reality.
The Sleeping Car Porter often reads like a “day in the life” video because we see Baxter’s day unfolding in great detail. The list of his responsibilities is long, and he is granted very little sleep. In fact, he’s so sleep deprived that he starts seeing strange things. (Is he hallucinating? Or are they really there? You must keep reading to decide...)
We’re also given vivid and amusing portrayals of the people riding the train, who each earn their own nickname in Baxter’s mind. And of course, Baxter can’t help but observe inwardly the state of their teeth and what kind of dental work, if any, they need.
In terms of pacing, this book suitably reminded me of a long train ride. The story follows a steady rhythm throughout, but what drew me from one page to the next was Mayr's gorgeous writing style, which offers some of the most beautiful turns of phrase I've encountered since reading Maggie O'Farrell's books. Highly recommend.
January 28, 2024
This book just fell short for me. The idea is a good one but I for one would have liked to have had more historical emphasis or at least some historical background in the Author’s Note about the “Georges” of the early 20th century railcars. Beyond that the characters were underdeveloped and the flow of the story seemed more like looking at a series of photographs rather than a smooth flowing film. It was an okay read but not one I would recommend. I have come to the conclusion after several years that “Giller Prize” should be a red flag for me. I’m not sure what the judges look for in a book but it isn’t what I look for.
January 19, 2023
I am bummed to report this was an underwhelming, kind of boring read for me. It's very different from Mayr's other books that I've read, which are very weird and eccentric, like about lesbian vegetarian vampires. This is straight historical fiction, very details focused, obviously very well researched. I just... didn't care, despite my initial interest in this slice of 1920s queer Black Canadian life. Partially it might have been the audiobook narration? I'm baffled this won the Giller. Not that Suzette Mayr did, but that this book in particular did.
October 20, 2023
Bahnromantik? Nicht ganz
Bahn fahren ist schön. Oder? In gewisser Weise ja *g*. Aber das Bahn fahren auch anstrengend sein kann, beweist Suzette Mayr mit ihrem 6. Roman „Der Schlafwagendiener“, der von Anne Emmert aus dem Englischen übersetzt wurde, 2023 im Wagenbach-Verlag erschien und zudem bereits 2022 in Kanada mit dem renommiertesten kanadischen Literaturpreis, dem Giller Prize, ausgezeichnet wurde.
Denn natürlich ist die Geschichte um den Schwarzen Baxter, der eigentlich Zahnarzt werden und sich mit dem Job als Schlafwagendiener das Studium finanzieren will, keine romantisierende Ode an die (vergessenen) Schlafwagendiener dieser Welt. Vielmehr prangert die Autorin mit der auf Tatsachen beruhenden Geschichte die rassistischen und (im Falle von Baxter) auch homophoben Zustände in Kanada 1929 an.
Suzette Mayr schwingt aber nicht die übergroße Moralkeule, sondern verpackt ihre Kritik in zum Teil wunderbar poetisch, manchmal etwas schräge Sprachbilder ohne dabei „kitschig“ zu werden.
„Der Tag beginnt. Die neugeborene Sonne bricht durch die Bäume und sticht Baxter geradewegs in die brennenden roten Augen. Er ist ein Schlafwagendiener. Ein schläfriger Wagendiener. Schläfriger Diener im Wagen. Wagen schläfrig. Diener. Schlaf.“ (S. 168)
Als Leser:in hat man Baxter von Anfang an ins Herz geschlossen, bewundert die stoische Ruhe, mit der er die Erniedrigungen der weißen Wohlstandsgesellschaft über sich ergehen lässt, lacht und lächelt über Baxters Typisierungen der Passagiere anhand des Gebisses und wird immer tiefer in die Welt der Halluzinationen gezogen.
Richtig gelesen: die Geschichte hat eine zweite, nicht minder faszinierende Ebene. Während der Fahrt von Montreal nach Vancouver wird der völlig übermüdete Baxter immer wieder von Halluzinationen heimgesucht, die sich aber genial zwischen die Absurditäten der Passagiere „einfügen“, so dass man als Leser:in aufpassen muss, nicht zwischen Realität und Halluzination stecken und äh, auf der Strecke zu bleiben.
Ob Baxter es schafft, sein Studium zu finanzieren? Das wird hier natürlich nicht verraten *g*.
Alles in Allem ist „Der Schlafwagendiener“ ein überaus lesenswerter Roman, der mit einem tollen Cover (ich musste beim Blick darauf sofort an „Singing in the rain“ von Gene Kelly denken *g*) ebenso punktet wie mit der Geschichte an sich und dem ich deshalb 4 swingende Sterne verpasse.
©kingofmusic
Bahn fahren ist schön. Oder? In gewisser Weise ja *g*. Aber das Bahn fahren auch anstrengend sein kann, beweist Suzette Mayr mit ihrem 6. Roman „Der Schlafwagendiener“, der von Anne Emmert aus dem Englischen übersetzt wurde, 2023 im Wagenbach-Verlag erschien und zudem bereits 2022 in Kanada mit dem renommiertesten kanadischen Literaturpreis, dem Giller Prize, ausgezeichnet wurde.
Denn natürlich ist die Geschichte um den Schwarzen Baxter, der eigentlich Zahnarzt werden und sich mit dem Job als Schlafwagendiener das Studium finanzieren will, keine romantisierende Ode an die (vergessenen) Schlafwagendiener dieser Welt. Vielmehr prangert die Autorin mit der auf Tatsachen beruhenden Geschichte die rassistischen und (im Falle von Baxter) auch homophoben Zustände in Kanada 1929 an.
Suzette Mayr schwingt aber nicht die übergroße Moralkeule, sondern verpackt ihre Kritik in zum Teil wunderbar poetisch, manchmal etwas schräge Sprachbilder ohne dabei „kitschig“ zu werden.
„Der Tag beginnt. Die neugeborene Sonne bricht durch die Bäume und sticht Baxter geradewegs in die brennenden roten Augen. Er ist ein Schlafwagendiener. Ein schläfriger Wagendiener. Schläfriger Diener im Wagen. Wagen schläfrig. Diener. Schlaf.“ (S. 168)
Als Leser:in hat man Baxter von Anfang an ins Herz geschlossen, bewundert die stoische Ruhe, mit der er die Erniedrigungen der weißen Wohlstandsgesellschaft über sich ergehen lässt, lacht und lächelt über Baxters Typisierungen der Passagiere anhand des Gebisses und wird immer tiefer in die Welt der Halluzinationen gezogen.
Richtig gelesen: die Geschichte hat eine zweite, nicht minder faszinierende Ebene. Während der Fahrt von Montreal nach Vancouver wird der völlig übermüdete Baxter immer wieder von Halluzinationen heimgesucht, die sich aber genial zwischen die Absurditäten der Passagiere „einfügen“, so dass man als Leser:in aufpassen muss, nicht zwischen Realität und Halluzination stecken und äh, auf der Strecke zu bleiben.
Ob Baxter es schafft, sein Studium zu finanzieren? Das wird hier natürlich nicht verraten *g*.
Alles in Allem ist „Der Schlafwagendiener“ ein überaus lesenswerter Roman, der mit einem tollen Cover (ich musste beim Blick darauf sofort an „Singing in the rain“ von Gene Kelly denken *g*) ebenso punktet wie mit der Geschichte an sich und dem ich deshalb 4 swingende Sterne verpasse.
©kingofmusic
April 25, 2023
4.5, rounded down.
Winner of this year's Giller Prize, and now also shortlisted for the inaugural Carol Shields Award, this short, quick-paced novel is surprisingly involving and effective in delineating a rather neglected slice of black labor history - the plight of train porters -here set in Canada in 1929. Titular character Baxter is not only striving to better himself by saving up his meager tips to matriculate to dentistry school, but is also harboring a secret sexual orientation, which could make him an incarcerated felon if discovered.
The two aspects collide spectacularly, with Baxter's hallucinations from sleep-deprivation and a spiritualist stirring up perhaps vengeful spirits adding a nice spooky touch. The myriad characters on the train - fellow employees and passengers, both of whom he has to be wary about, are richly rendered. My only minor quibble is that it seems unlikely that no one raises an eyebrow about the burgeoning affectionate relationship between Baxter and Esme, a lonely orphaned 8-year-old white passenger.
Nevertheless, this was a fascinating character study, and tempts me to visit Mayr's back-catalog, which looks equally intriguing.
Winner of this year's Giller Prize, and now also shortlisted for the inaugural Carol Shields Award, this short, quick-paced novel is surprisingly involving and effective in delineating a rather neglected slice of black labor history - the plight of train porters -here set in Canada in 1929. Titular character Baxter is not only striving to better himself by saving up his meager tips to matriculate to dentistry school, but is also harboring a secret sexual orientation, which could make him an incarcerated felon if discovered.
The two aspects collide spectacularly, with Baxter's hallucinations from sleep-deprivation and a spiritualist stirring up perhaps vengeful spirits adding a nice spooky touch. The myriad characters on the train - fellow employees and passengers, both of whom he has to be wary about, are richly rendered. My only minor quibble is that it seems unlikely that no one raises an eyebrow about the burgeoning affectionate relationship between Baxter and Esme, a lonely orphaned 8-year-old white passenger.
Nevertheless, this was a fascinating character study, and tempts me to visit Mayr's back-catalog, which looks equally intriguing.
November 30, 2022
This is about a queer young Black man working as a train porter in Canada in 1929 to save money to attend dental school. I found it disconnected, switching between formal and somewhat crude, sexual language. But maybe that is like his life, stifled by his job, having to appease privileged and demanding passengers and bosses, tolerating awful treatment … all the while experiencing what felt like something of an awakening. His vulnerability was palpable near the end. He was afraid of being found out, feared being fired (porters were given random demerits for the slightest infractions or complaints), imprisoned, or even killed. And being sleep-deprived due to the demands of being always available, his decreasing mental health was climactic.
I can’t say I loved it, but it was an interesting portrayal of our history that I had not previously thought about.
I can’t say I loved it, but it was an interesting portrayal of our history that I had not previously thought about.
May 9, 2023
The history surrounding Black sleeping car porters or Pullman porters has been having a moment lately and coming out of the shadows. I read Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class a while back on the US experience, and They Call Me George: The Untold Story of The Black Train Porters has also caught my attention. On tv, there’s The Porter on CBC. During the pandemic, I watched an interesting local virtual event on the history as well. It’s no wonder that there’s been a surge of interest, given all of the fascinating dimensions and contradictions in the work and living conditions these men experienced, and what it tells us about race, class, and gender in 20th century North America.
Suzette Mayr, a queer, biracial Calgary author, has wisely turned a novelist’s eye on the life of a sleeping car porter, bringing an added dimension not available in non-fiction. Baxter, her protagonist, is a Caribbean immigrant in the 1920s who dreams of attending dentistry school (ok, that part stretched credulity for me - does anyone dream of being a dentist? also the descriptions of people’s teeth were squicky). He is trying to earn the necessary funds by working as a sleeping car porter, and the novel traces one journey from Montreal to Vancouver on what is (supposed to be) the fastest passenger rail journey in North America. Baxter lives in constant peril of accumulating demerit points at the whim of racist passengers and management, testing by railway ‘spotters’ (rather like secret shoppers), summary firing, and mistreatment. He is plagued by sleep deprivation, ‘on’ 24 hours a day except when he can catch a few uncomfortable moments of slumber, and so his experiences are hallucinatory - though later it begins to appear that some of his hallucinations are ghosts. Finally, as a gay Black man, Baxter faces an additional peril of persecution.
A really effective portrait of incredibly hard working conditions and the impact of casual but systemic racism. The portrait of sleep deprivation in particular really drove home what these men experienced. The plot and other passengers were more secondary for me, but there was a tightly constructed story arc, a nice increasing sense of claustrophobia and peril. Well done.
Suzette Mayr, a queer, biracial Calgary author, has wisely turned a novelist’s eye on the life of a sleeping car porter, bringing an added dimension not available in non-fiction. Baxter, her protagonist, is a Caribbean immigrant in the 1920s who dreams of attending dentistry school (ok, that part stretched credulity for me - does anyone dream of being a dentist? also the descriptions of people’s teeth were squicky). He is trying to earn the necessary funds by working as a sleeping car porter, and the novel traces one journey from Montreal to Vancouver on what is (supposed to be) the fastest passenger rail journey in North America. Baxter lives in constant peril of accumulating demerit points at the whim of racist passengers and management, testing by railway ‘spotters’ (rather like secret shoppers), summary firing, and mistreatment. He is plagued by sleep deprivation, ‘on’ 24 hours a day except when he can catch a few uncomfortable moments of slumber, and so his experiences are hallucinatory - though later it begins to appear that some of his hallucinations are ghosts. Finally, as a gay Black man, Baxter faces an additional peril of persecution.
A really effective portrait of incredibly hard working conditions and the impact of casual but systemic racism. The portrait of sleep deprivation in particular really drove home what these men experienced. The plot and other passengers were more secondary for me, but there was a tightly constructed story arc, a nice increasing sense of claustrophobia and peril. Well done.
December 6, 2024
Winner of the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize
Set in 1929, the author explores the world of black men who worked as porters in the sleeper cars of transcontinental trains crossing Canada.
The story focuses on "Baxter" a queer black man who is saving his meagre salary and tips to go to dentistry school. A mudslide brings the train to a standstill for several days and he has to deal with unruly white passengers, ghosts, sleep-deprivation and the constant fear of losing his job.
Set in 1929, the author explores the world of black men who worked as porters in the sleeper cars of transcontinental trains crossing Canada.
The story focuses on "Baxter" a queer black man who is saving his meagre salary and tips to go to dentistry school. A mudslide brings the train to a standstill for several days and he has to deal with unruly white passengers, ghosts, sleep-deprivation and the constant fear of losing his job.
January 20, 2023
The sun only pretends to rise, nosing into this day, drawing this day towards its very longest. The sun hates him. p154
Desperate feelings can turn into loathing. p184
Baxter loathes his position as a sleeping car porter, even as he knows as a black man in the late 1930's, how lucky he is to have it, and how easily it can be lost. Small infractions of inflexible rules add up to demerits on record. One could be fired on the spot. Baxter swallows his fury and shoulders the burden of indignity by doing a meticulous job. Most of all he loathes himself.
He doesn't see sweat and semen stains on train linen, human manure, blood, or spills of urine. He doesn't speak of liquor...or decrepitude or ineptitude or plain old mediocrity dressed up as something else as he mops it up, scrapes it, soaps it down, throws it out. p47
Despite the fact that he is near invisible to those who delude themselves that they are superior; despite the troubling visions that are invisible to others; the sleeping car porter nurtures an odd ambition. He has been saving his meagre tips so that can become a dentist. He has memorized an old manual that had been left behind on a train. He knows the name of all of the teeth and what can go wrong inside a mouth, and he can't help assessing his passengers for dental health and anomalies. He dubs them with metaphorical nicknames.
Leaving aside the validity of a white woman channeling a black man from across a century, the plot is simple. The "fastest train across the continent" slithers its way along the tracks until just before Banff it is stalled by circumstances beyond control, coming to a two day halt that breaks the routine as well as some of the people under such stress.
Within this basic structure, SM has woven layers of complexity. Desperate to evade his past, to relieve his sense of overwhelming guilt and grief, most of all, on call 24/7, he is desperate for sleep. Curiously, he makes friends with his hallucinations, treating them for the most part as familiar nuisances. What, then, to make of Esme, clinging to him as he makes his rounds?
With the focus mainly on Baxter, SM manages by skillful inference and pocket-sized encounters, to reveal a wide cast of characters displaying the spirit of the times (think: racism, homophobia, conformism, the craze for séances and exotic experiences) Especially vivid is Baxter's eccentric Aunt Arimenta, advising him from her grave.
Aunt A. always said that the dead are all around us, but that doesn't mean you need to strike up a conversation with them. p95
This a quiet book seething with repressed energy. Without being facetious, I see it as a bit of a sleeper that may keep erupting long after the train finally arrives at the station.
Desperate feelings can turn into loathing. p184
Baxter loathes his position as a sleeping car porter, even as he knows as a black man in the late 1930's, how lucky he is to have it, and how easily it can be lost. Small infractions of inflexible rules add up to demerits on record. One could be fired on the spot. Baxter swallows his fury and shoulders the burden of indignity by doing a meticulous job. Most of all he loathes himself.
He doesn't see sweat and semen stains on train linen, human manure, blood, or spills of urine. He doesn't speak of liquor...or decrepitude or ineptitude or plain old mediocrity dressed up as something else as he mops it up, scrapes it, soaps it down, throws it out. p47
Despite the fact that he is near invisible to those who delude themselves that they are superior; despite the troubling visions that are invisible to others; the sleeping car porter nurtures an odd ambition. He has been saving his meagre tips so that can become a dentist. He has memorized an old manual that had been left behind on a train. He knows the name of all of the teeth and what can go wrong inside a mouth, and he can't help assessing his passengers for dental health and anomalies. He dubs them with metaphorical nicknames.
Leaving aside the validity of a white woman channeling a black man from across a century, the plot is simple. The "fastest train across the continent" slithers its way along the tracks until just before Banff it is stalled by circumstances beyond control, coming to a two day halt that breaks the routine as well as some of the people under such stress.
Within this basic structure, SM has woven layers of complexity. Desperate to evade his past, to relieve his sense of overwhelming guilt and grief, most of all, on call 24/7, he is desperate for sleep. Curiously, he makes friends with his hallucinations, treating them for the most part as familiar nuisances. What, then, to make of Esme, clinging to him as he makes his rounds?
With the focus mainly on Baxter, SM manages by skillful inference and pocket-sized encounters, to reveal a wide cast of characters displaying the spirit of the times (think: racism, homophobia, conformism, the craze for séances and exotic experiences) Especially vivid is Baxter's eccentric Aunt Arimenta, advising him from her grave.
Aunt A. always said that the dead are all around us, but that doesn't mean you need to strike up a conversation with them. p95
This a quiet book seething with repressed energy. Without being facetious, I see it as a bit of a sleeper that may keep erupting long after the train finally arrives at the station.
October 12, 2022
Baxter, a porter who aspires to be a dentist, boards a train across Canada from Montreal to Vancouver, with the responsibility to take care of the guest in a sleeping car. Set in the early 1900s, the black and queer man must deal with unruly guests, seances, famous actors, and almost no sleep during the four days across the continent. When the train stalls, the novel becomes a psychological thriller as Baxter is trying to save money from dental school and is only a few demerits away from losing his job and getting stranded on the other side of Canada.
I found this novel because it was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. I knew nothing of this history which inspired this novel. After the US Civil War the Pullman company hired thousands of black men as train porters, many formerly slaves, to escort rich white people across the country. As a porter, black men were given an opportunity to make money relying only on tips, yet their positions were constantly in jeopardy based on demerits from their supervisor conductors, exclusively white men. Many of the the white passengers called the porters “George” after George Pullman, regardless of their actual names.
Baxter was such a great character. Over only four days, we learn about his journey from the Caribbean to Canada, aspirations to be a dentist, troubled past relationships, all while serving entitled white passengers. The writing makes the reader feel claustrophobic while being trapped in this train, and the tension builds by Baxter’s lack of sleep, all while he has a young girl following him everywhere he goes. A postcard found in the bathroom amplifies the tension, where by its mere possession, Baxter could get fired at any moment and stranded at the next station.
I loved this novel which combined so many genres from suspense, to humor, to historical fiction. I highly recommend this book.▪️
I found this novel because it was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. I knew nothing of this history which inspired this novel. After the US Civil War the Pullman company hired thousands of black men as train porters, many formerly slaves, to escort rich white people across the country. As a porter, black men were given an opportunity to make money relying only on tips, yet their positions were constantly in jeopardy based on demerits from their supervisor conductors, exclusively white men. Many of the the white passengers called the porters “George” after George Pullman, regardless of their actual names.
Baxter was such a great character. Over only four days, we learn about his journey from the Caribbean to Canada, aspirations to be a dentist, troubled past relationships, all while serving entitled white passengers. The writing makes the reader feel claustrophobic while being trapped in this train, and the tension builds by Baxter’s lack of sleep, all while he has a young girl following him everywhere he goes. A postcard found in the bathroom amplifies the tension, where by its mere possession, Baxter could get fired at any moment and stranded at the next station.
I loved this novel which combined so many genres from suspense, to humor, to historical fiction. I highly recommend this book.▪️
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September 21, 2023
Baxter is a sleeping car porter who ironically gets no sleep himself. When a mudslide strands his train in the middle of the mountains on a run he wasn't even supposed to be on, he has to contend with the mounting anxiety of the passengers, the increased scrutiny by the conductor, and the slowly unraveling threads of his fellow porters.
I can see why this has a chronically low rating. It's a slice-of-life literary novel with very little resolution (although there is kind of a resolution), where Baxter has been working nine years toward earning enough in tips to go to dental school. There's a lot of teeth, there's a lot of homophobia, there's a lot of racism. There's a lot of hallucinations, and you begin to wonder if it's because Baxter is chronically sleep deprived, or if it's because he has underlying mental illness.
The writing and narrative format is weird. Like And Then There Were None, there are no quotation marks, but instead there are — indication speech. Common enough of a thing in the 1920s.
The attention to historical detail is high.
I really enjoyed the writing style. I liked Baxter. Everything is seen through his sleep-deprived eyes, as he's baby-sitter, comforter, janitor, concierge, everything to everyone on the train all while maintaining an awful balance between being respectful enough to get a tip and not falling into an Uncle Tom caricature and losing himself in the process. The thin road of maintaining his own dignity while not angering the white passengers enough to get him fired or earn more demerits. All while he's also balancing the secrecy of his homosexuality.
It's a brief yet nuanced look, and I really liked it.
I can see why this has a chronically low rating. It's a slice-of-life literary novel with very little resolution (although there is kind of a resolution), where Baxter has been working nine years toward earning enough in tips to go to dental school. There's a lot of teeth, there's a lot of homophobia, there's a lot of racism. There's a lot of hallucinations, and you begin to wonder if it's because Baxter is chronically sleep deprived, or if it's because he has underlying mental illness.
The writing and narrative format is weird. Like And Then There Were None, there are no quotation marks, but instead there are — indication speech. Common enough of a thing in the 1920s.
The attention to historical detail is high.
I really enjoyed the writing style. I liked Baxter. Everything is seen through his sleep-deprived eyes, as he's baby-sitter, comforter, janitor, concierge, everything to everyone on the train all while maintaining an awful balance between being respectful enough to get a tip and not falling into an Uncle Tom caricature and losing himself in the process. The thin road of maintaining his own dignity while not angering the white passengers enough to get him fired or earn more demerits. All while he's also balancing the secrecy of his homosexuality.
It's a brief yet nuanced look, and I really liked it.
February 7, 2023
I buzzed through this book, not because it was engrossing but because its structure and presentation, to say nothing of the sheer tedium of the story, prime it for fast reading. The Sleeping Car Porter is a failed novel in the sense that I can clearly see what Suzette Mayr wanted to accomplish with this story, but she couldn't get out of the story's way or abandon her bag of pretentious tricks (e.g. dashes to indicate direct dialogue instead of quotation marks, unnecessary leaps in diction, characters identified by descriptors instead of names), to let the story and her protagonist do their job. She gilds the lily again and again and again. There's just no need to do this, and with each page the novel devolves until it's insufferable.
To me, not enough has been written about train porters (Pullman porters, here in the U.S.) and, to her credit, Mayr did a considerable amount of research to render this story as accurately and with as much detail as possible. True, there are slight differences between the experiences of Blacks in Canada and the United States, but those differences are razor thin. To its credit, this novel is stippled with lots of detail. But I would have been more satisfied if I had read one or two of the texts listed in Mayr's Works Consulted at the back of the novel. It's a shame that a story that could have been trascendent and fluid ends up being a pathetic attempt at aiming for high art. Suzette Mayr sabotaged herself. I'm very disappointed in this book.
To me, not enough has been written about train porters (Pullman porters, here in the U.S.) and, to her credit, Mayr did a considerable amount of research to render this story as accurately and with as much detail as possible. True, there are slight differences between the experiences of Blacks in Canada and the United States, but those differences are razor thin. To its credit, this novel is stippled with lots of detail. But I would have been more satisfied if I had read one or two of the texts listed in Mayr's Works Consulted at the back of the novel. It's a shame that a story that could have been trascendent and fluid ends up being a pathetic attempt at aiming for high art. Suzette Mayr sabotaged herself. I'm very disappointed in this book.
April 15, 2023
Really enjoyed this, although the protagonist's lack of sleep stressed me out to a ridiculous degree. The limited setting works really well, and Mayr gives us such a full look at Baxter. The story can get fragmented as Baxter's cognitive faculties are more impaired with lack of sleep, and we slowly get to see the things Baxter wants underneath, what shows up when he can't control his thoughts so well. It's an anxious book but it earns its anxiety. Well done.
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