Why a Booktrail?
1929: 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
What you need to know before your trail
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.
Travel Guide
The Sleeping Car Porter Trail of Canada
This is very exciting – crossing Canada in an old train where you sleep overnight and have porters on hand to look after you.
You can actually do this journey by train in Canada. Not like in the book but then was the 1920s and life was different then. The Sleeping Car porter is black and faces racism and all manner of abuse for her ‘ lowly status’. This is a snapshot of life at the time.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Sleeping Car Porter
Destination: Canada Author/guide: Suzette Mayr Departure Time: 1926
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