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A review by serendipitysbooks
The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
The Sleeping Car Porter takes us across Canada, from Montreal to Vancouver, over the course of four days, with Baxter, a Black man who wants to become a dentist and is working as a sleeping car porter in order to save enough money to fund his studies. The trip is eventful, with a mudslide trapping the train in the mountains for a time, making the journey much longer than expected.
The writing was really effective in immersing the reader in Baxter’s world. I loved the way it highlighted the difference between the public and the private. The public and professional way Baxter responded to the passengers contrasted with his honest and often unflattering thoughts and opinions about them, while the public parts of the train which the passengers enjoyed juxtaposed with the behind the scenes view of places like the linen closet and the porter’s dining and sleeping areas which were considerably less glamorous. I also enjoyed the way Mayr let the passengers’ conversations and actions reveal their true characters and the way in which Baxter observed more than the passengers may have been aware of and thus knew things about them they may wish he didn’t.
Mayr captured the challenges of Baxter’s working life brilliantly, particularly the exhaustion suffered by being constantly on call, the hallucinations which resulted, and the subservient and demeaning way he was treated by many of the passengers who seemed to think he was beneath them and not worthy of basic civility, doubtless a result of both class and race. The difficulty of remaining polite yet the necessity of doing so in order to earn essential tips as well as retain his job also stood out.
The company treated its porters in a very punitive manner, exacerbating already challenging working conditions - fining them for items stolen by passengers, giving them demerit points based on customer complaints, seemingly with no investigation or right of reply, which would lead to dismissal once a certain number were accrued and spying on them via spotters. Reading this was a salutary lesson on problematic workplaces and the necessity of unions. As an employee Baxter was very vulnerable and this came through strongly. It would take just one passenger to upend his dreams.
Baxter’s identity as a closeted gay man made him extra vulnerable. Flashbacks to an incident from his past showcased the real world consequences of his sexuality, while on the train some passengers, possibly unknowingly possibly just thoughtlessly and carelessly, placed him in situations that were extra risky for him because of his sexuality.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. Mayr did a great job depicting the everyday working reality of a man on the margins of Canadian society and immersing the reader in that world.
The writing was really effective in immersing the reader in Baxter’s world. I loved the way it highlighted the difference between the public and the private. The public and professional way Baxter responded to the passengers contrasted with his honest and often unflattering thoughts and opinions about them, while the public parts of the train which the passengers enjoyed juxtaposed with the behind the scenes view of places like the linen closet and the porter’s dining and sleeping areas which were considerably less glamorous. I also enjoyed the way Mayr let the passengers’ conversations and actions reveal their true characters and the way in which Baxter observed more than the passengers may have been aware of and thus knew things about them they may wish he didn’t.
Mayr captured the challenges of Baxter’s working life brilliantly, particularly the exhaustion suffered by being constantly on call, the hallucinations which resulted, and the subservient and demeaning way he was treated by many of the passengers who seemed to think he was beneath them and not worthy of basic civility, doubtless a result of both class and race. The difficulty of remaining polite yet the necessity of doing so in order to earn essential tips as well as retain his job also stood out.
The company treated its porters in a very punitive manner, exacerbating already challenging working conditions - fining them for items stolen by passengers, giving them demerit points based on customer complaints, seemingly with no investigation or right of reply, which would lead to dismissal once a certain number were accrued and spying on them via spotters. Reading this was a salutary lesson on problematic workplaces and the necessity of unions. As an employee Baxter was very vulnerable and this came through strongly. It would take just one passenger to upend his dreams.
Baxter’s identity as a closeted gay man made him extra vulnerable. Flashbacks to an incident from his past showcased the real world consequences of his sexuality, while on the train some passengers, possibly unknowingly possibly just thoughtlessly and carelessly, placed him in situations that were extra risky for him because of his sexuality.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. Mayr did a great job depicting the everyday working reality of a man on the margins of Canadian society and immersing the reader in that world.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, and Classism