Publishers Weekly
★ 08/22/2022
Mayr’s dazzling latest (after Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall) tells the story of Baxter, a queer Black train porter, during a trip from Montreal to Vancouver in 1929. While Baxter grinds through endless tasks to keep the passengers happy and comfortable, he endures insufficient meals, sleep deprivation, repressed sexual desires, and the ever-present threat of receiving his 60th demerit, after which a porter is fired. On this particular journey, there are also singular guests to deal with: a romance writer and her adult daughter, a medium who believes her compartment is haunted, a recently orphaned little girl, a spry doctor, and a recluse with a possible stowaway in his cabin. It will all be worth it, however, if Baxter’s work as a porter allows him to save enough money to go to dentistry school. Mayr’s prose is vivid but never overwrought, capturing the surrealism of intense fatigue in constant motion: “He sits on the hopper again, his only escape, staring into the dark hole between his legs as rail ties blur by in the dark. He misses standing still.” Readers will be captivated. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
Mayr’s prose is vivid but never overwrought, capturing the surrealism of intense fatigue in constant motion … Readers will be captivated.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review
“You can almost taste the exhaustion and despair in this quiet, yet vivid, story of a black man working as a porter on a sleeper train in Canada in 1929. Beautifully written, melancholy but never without hope.” – Ingunn Sneadel, 2024 Dublin Literary Award Judge
"Illuminating the ways in which race, class, and queerness intersect, this book will feel deeply relatable to anyone who has ever had to suffer the indignities of working front-line customer service." – Rose Sutherland, LitHub
"In 1929, being a passenger train porter was fraught with challenges...Baxter’s own sleep deprivation is perhaps the most intriguing character of the book. It leads to hallucinations, questionable decisions, and borderline supernatural suggestions." – Kirkus Reviews
"Suzette Mayr’s novel The Sleeping Car Porter an artfully constructed story that moves, beguiles, and satisfies." – Brett Josef Grubisic, The Toronto Star
"Suzette Mayr brings to life –believably, achingly, thrillingly –a whole world contained in a passenger train moving across the Canadian vastness, nearly one hundred years ago. As only occurs in the finest historical novels, every page in The Sleeping Car Porter feels alive and immediate –and eerily contemporary. The sleeping car porter in this sleek, stylish novel is named R.T. Baxter –called George by the people upon whom he waits, as is every other Black porter. Baxter’s dream of one day going to school to learn dentistry coexists with his secret life as a gay man, and in Mayr’s triumphant novel we follow him not only from Montreal to Calgary, but into and out of the lives of an indelibly etched cast of supporting characters, and, finally, into a beautifully rendered radiance." – 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize Jury
"Mayr’s new novel, through painstaking historical research, reconstructs the workdays of a Black, lower-class, closeted gay man." – Reinhold Kramer, The Winnipeg Free Press
"Baxter works the trains as they run from Toronto to Winnipeg, through Calgary and Banff to Vancouver. Passengers on board wrestle with the details of their lives: hats and weddings, books and paperwork, drinks and cigars, childhood loss and bad telegrams, boots to be shined, a scrutinized pocket watch, communication with the dead. Baxter continuously serves them, ever watchful, needing perfection. Ten more demerits will get him fired, and a black man hiding his desire for other men has plenty of reasons to fear being targeted by whites with money. Endless patience is required to be a sleeping car porter. He's always exhausted, but it's a job, and he's saving, determined to pay for school and become a dentist who will one day be important. Then he'll be the one riding. For now, his dreams keep him alive, and time spent with people shoved together in tight spaces can shake up whole worlds. In the end, it's a little girl who fully reveals him. She’s just lost her mother and won't sleep, clinging to Baxter instead. This is intensely researched historical fiction that doesn’t feel like history. It feels like heart." – Tim McCarthy, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI
"Mayr evokes the mystique of transcontinental travel and the tumult of lives on the margins in this much-anticipated period novel. All aboard!" – Oprah Daily
“I couldn’t help imagining what a film Wes Anderson might make of Suzette Mayr’s The Sleeping Car Porter. The novel’s main character is a gay Black porter riding the rails in 1920’s Canada, coping with a horde of difficult long-haul passengers, including a child who appears to have permanently attached herself to his leg. Terrified that a breach of one of the railway’s insanely restrictive rules will get him fired before he can save enough money for dental school, he amuses himself—and keeps awake on his grueling shifts—by imagining the medical horrors that lie behind the smiles (or grimaces) of his clientele.” – The New York Times
". . . the intensely closeted, time-bending surrealism of a long-distance train journey with immersive, cinematic flair, not to mention the hallucinatory fantasies of an increasingly sleep-deprived Baxter who, as a character clinging to his dreams, is impossible not to get behind." – Claire Allfree, Daily Mail
"The Sleeping Car Porter calls to mind the fictive mining of queer and racialized Canadian history that novelists Ann-Marie MacDonald and Aren X. Tulchinsky…" – Evelyn C. White, Herisons
Kirkus Reviews
2022-07-27
In 1929, being a passenger train porter was fraught with challenges.
R.T. Baxter greets you at the train, loads your luggage, escorts you to your compartment and your berth, gets you water, gets you liquor, gets you a sandwich, tells you the train’s schedule, shines your shoes, offers comfort, watches your child, cleans your toilet, makes your bed, and generally doesn’t sleep. He is a train porter. His duties run around the clock and offer few sympathies for missteps. Baxter aims for more. Eight years ago, he found a textbook on dentistry on the train that inspired him to become a dentist. Now, he’s saved $967 of the $1,068 he’ll need for four years of dentistry school. His goal seems in reach, but the odds are against him. The same passengers who offer him the means to reach his goals—tips—stand to get him fired through their complaints. If Baxter is said by passengers to be disloyal, dishonest, immoral, insubordinate, incompetent, careless, or untruthful, he’ll earn demerits, and with enough demerits he’ll be fired. Baxter is judged for being Black, judged for being gay, and the train’s passengers can say anything they like to earn him these demerits or even worse, like jail time. The system is rigged. The porters must buy their meals from their employers, are financially liable for lost or stolen train goods like linens and towels, and are at the mercy of their clientele. To top it off, these multiday train runs are heavy on work and light on sleep. Baxter’s own sleep deprivation is perhaps the most intriguing character of the book. It leads to hallucinations, questionable decisions, and borderline supernatural suggestions.
You’ll probably be more generous with tips, and train rides will never be the same.
