Review of THE SLEEPING CAR PORTER by Suzette Mayr

3.5 Stars 

This novel won the 2022 Giller Prize for Fiction so my expectations were high; unfortunately, those expectations were not met.

R. T. Baxter is a young Black man who works as a train porter in 1929.  There’s a short chapter tracing his trip from Toronto to Winnipeg, but the majority of the book focuses on a Montreal to Vancouver trip which is waylaid by a mudslide outside of Banff.  Undernourished and sleep deprived, he struggles with disturbing hallucinations and completing all his duties. 

I appreciated learning about the working conditions of Black porters.  Blacks were lucky to have these jobs, but a sleeping car is, as Baxter describes it, a “luxurious prison.”  Except for short breaks to nap, a porter is always on call.  He must buy meals from the employer, is financially liable for stolen linens and towels, and is at the mercy of passengers whose complaints can result in demerit points.  Demerits are given for “disloyalty, dishonesty, immorality, insubordination, incompetence, gross carelessness, untruthfulness.”    At one point, Baxter receives two demerits for insolence, but he isn’t told which passenger complained.  He must be on a lookout for undercover spotters who are hired to report employee infractions.  If a porter accumulates too many such points, he is dismissed.

Of course, the porters also face racism.  Baxter, for example, is addressed as Boy and George.  One passenger even asks him to sing and dance.  He cannot, however, react in any way; he must remain cheerful and deferential.  Baxter comes to think of himself as “a clicking Robot, created to serve . . . a whirring automaton.”  Because Baxter is gay, he is especially vulnerable since homosexual acts were illegal.   

There is not much of a plot.  Very little happens.  The mudslide doesn’t happen until halfway through the book.  The focus is on Baxter’s unrelenting exhaustion and his constant fretting about receiving demerit points and losing his job.  When there is a major development, it is quickly resolved so tension is not maintained.  There are touches of humour in the nicknames Baxter gives his passengers:  Pulp and Paper, Punch and Judy, Spider, and Blancmange. 

What I also found surprising is that the development of the protagonist lacks the depth I expected.  We know details about Baxter and his life (i.e. he loves science fiction, he wants to attend dentistry school, his parents objected to his effeminate manner), but it’s difficult to name many personality traits. 

This is not a bad book, but it didn’t resonate with me.  Its strong suit is the historical details; otherwise, it is not exceptional.