The Sleeping Car Porter

Starred review from August 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.

August 15, 2022
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.

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September 15, 2022
The year is 1929, and young R. T. Baxter is a Black, secretly gay porter working on a trans-Canada train (think Murder on the Orient Express without the murder! Or the Orient!). Baxter has a dream: to become a dentist. If he doesn't lose his job first, that is, for he has discovered a pornographic postcard depicting two men having sex. Instead of throwing it away, he keeps it, even though discovery would mean instant termination and perhaps even jail, although jail might be preferable to being a necessarily subservient porter who must attend to a train full of demanding white people, one of them being a little girl who has attached herself to him like moss on a north-facing tree. Entertaining her is a full-time job, made even more difficult by Baxter's lack of sleep, which leads him to have hallucinations. Though the passengers tend to be types, the author does a good job of depicting the condition of being both Black and gay in the late 1920s, while traveling by train. All aboard!

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.