The Sleeping Car Porter

By: Suzette Mayr

Narrated by: Chris McPherson

WINNER OF THE 2022 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY TOP 20 LITERARY FICTION BOOKS OF 2022

OPRAH DAILY: BOOKS TO READ BY THE FIRE

THE GLOBE 100: THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022

CBC BOOKS: THE BEST CANADIAN FICTION OF 2022

When a mudslide strands a train, Baxter, a queer Black sleeping car porter, must contend with the perils of white passengers, ghosts, and his secret love affair

The Sleeping Car Porter brings to life an important part of Black history in North America, from the perspective of a queer man living in a culture that renders him invisible in two ways. Affecting, imaginative, and visceral enough that you’ll feel the rocking of the train, The Sleeping Car Porter is a stunning accomplishment.

Baxter’s name isn’t George. But it’s 1929, and Baxter is lucky enough, as a Black man, to have a job as a sleeping car porter on a train that crisscrosses the country. So when the passengers call him George, he has to just smile and nod and act invisible. What he really wants is to go to dentistry school, but he’ll have to save up a lot of nickel and dime tips to get there, so he puts up with “George.”

On this particular trip out west, the passengers are more unruly than usual, especially when the train is stalled for two extra days; their secrets start to leak out and blur with the sleep-deprivation hallucinations Baxter is having. When he finds a naughty postcard of two queer men, Baxter’s memories and longings are reawakened; keeping it puts his job in peril, but he can’t part with the postcard or his thoughts of Edwin Drew, Porter Instructor.

“Suzette Mayr’s The Sleeping Car Porter offers a richly detailed account of a particular occupation and time—train porter on a Canadian passenger train in 1929—and unforcedly allows it to illuminate the societal strictures imposed on black men at the time—and today. Baxter is a secretly-queer and sleep-deprived porter saving up for dental school, working a system that periodically assigns unexplained demerits, and once a certain threshold is reached, the porter loses his job. Thus, success is impossible, the best one can do is to fail slowly. As Baxter takes a cross-continental run, the boarding passengers have more secrets than an Agatha Christie cast, creating a powder keg on train tracks. The Sleeping Car Porter is an engaging and illuminating novel about the costs of work, service, and secrets.”—Keith Mosman, Powell’s Books

“I thought The Sleeping Car Porter was fantastic! It strikes a balance between being about the struggles of being black and gay at that time while not being too heavy handed with it. I enjoyed his constant mental math on how many demerits he might receive for each infraction. The reader really gets a sense of the conflict that Baxter is going through. I really liked reading a book from the perspective of a porter.”—Hunter Gillum, Beaverdale Books

©2022 Suzette Mayr (P)2022 Coach House Books

Critic reviews

“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

“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

A Canadian book

I read it because of the award. It was interesting for its history and imagination. A quick read.

What A Life!

I'm thankful to have been exposed to the reality of a porter's job. The drudgery and sleep deprivation at the hands of the company and thankless travelers was horrendous.
Someone commented that they found the writing a bit repetitive. It actually highlights the tedium of the job. I drew a parallel of it to the sound of the wheels on the rails.
I'll read this again someday.

Sadly not interesting

Could not get into story. The porters inner dialogue was not engaging. Had hoped for more.

Dreadful

A book club pick, so I slogged through it. It follows a gay train car porter on a work trip across Canada in the late 1920’s. If you enjoy listening to a recitation about his day-to-day work, the quirks and foibles of his passengers, a multitude of descriptions of him having illicit gay sex, and his non-stop observations about his coworkers’ and passengers’ bad teeth, this is your book. This book was hated by everyone in our bookclub. There just weren’t ANY redeeming qualities about it. I’m mad I wasted a credit on it. Zero stars for story, 1 star overall because you did gain something from hearing it narrated. And the narrator did a good job with such pitiful material.