The Giller Book Club: The Sleeping Car Porter

On January 11, Suzette Mayr discussed The Sleeping Car Porter with Donna Bailey Nurse. The Sleeping Car Porter won the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

The Sleeping Car Porter is about Baxter, a closeted queer Black man who works as a sleeping car porter on a train in 1929. He smiles and tries to be invisible to the passengers, but what he wants is to save up and go to dentistry school. On one particular trip out west, the train is stalled and Baxter finds a postcard of two gay men. The postcard reawakens memories and desires and ultimately puts his job in jeopardy.

Suzette Mayr is a poet and novelist based in Calgary. She is the author of the novels Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall, Monoceros, Moon Honey, The Widows and Venous Hum. Monoceros won the ReLit Award, the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize and made the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist.