Suzette Mayr

Sleeping Car Porter

Is creepy Crawley Hall just another drab campus building with bad air, or is it out to kill the academics within?

Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall

WINNER OF THE 2022 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE PUBLISHERS WEEKLY TOP 20 LITERARY FICTION BOOKS OF 2022 OPRAH DAILY: BOOKS TO READ BY THE FIRE﻿ 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

The Sleeping Car Porter

Winner of the W.O. Mitchell Book PrizeWinner of the 2012 Relit Award for Best Novel Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize Shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction Shortlisted for the Alberta Literary Award for Best Fiction A Globe and Mail Best Novel of 2011 A seventeen-year-old boy, bullied and heartbroken, hangs himself. And althoughhe felt terribly alone, his suicide changes everyone around him. His parents are devastated. His secret boyfriend's girlfriend is relieved. His unicorn- and virginity-obsessed classmate, Faraday, is shattered; she wishes she had made friends with him that time she sold him an Iced Cappuccino at Tim Hortons. His English teacher, mid-divorce and mid-menopause, wishes she could remember the dead student's name, that she could care more about her students than her ex's new girlfriend. Who happens to be her cousin. The school guidance counsellor, Walter, feels guilty - maybe he should have made an effort when the kid asked for help. Max, the principal, is worried about how it will reflect on the very Catholic school. And Walter, who's been secretly in a relationship with Max for years, thinks that's a little callous. He's also tired of Max's obsession with some sci-fi show on TV. And Max wishes Walter would lose some weight and remember to use a coaster. And then Max meets a drag queen named Crepe Suzette. And everything changes. Monoceros is a masterpiece of the tragicomic; by exploring the effects of a suicide on characters outside the immediate circle, Mayr offers a dazzlingly original look at the ripple effects - both poignant and funny - of a tragedy. A tender, bold work.

Monoceros

Baxter träumt davon, Zahnarzt zu werden, und spart dafür jeden Dollar Trinkgeld. Bis er sich das Studium leisten kann, muss er auf mehrtägigen Schlafwagentouren stumm lächelnd und nickend alle Aufträge der reichen, weißen, oft skurrilen Fahrgäste ausführen. Er darf weder seinen eigenen Namen verwenden noch sich den kleinsten Fehler erlauben, dort am untersten Ende der gesellschaftlichen Hierarchie, auf dem Trittschemel beim Schuhepolieren oder beim Kloputzen. Im Jahr 1929 würde er für seine heimliche Hingabe an Männer nicht nur seinen Job verlieren, sondern unweigerlich im Gefängnis landen. Unterdessen bleibt der Zug auf der Fahrt von Montreal nach Vancouver vor einer Schlammlawine stehen. Die Stimmung an Bord wird mit jeder Stunde angespannter. Während des pausenlosen Tag- und Nachtdiensts bekommt der völlig übermüdete Baxter langsam Halluzinationen und hat seine unterdrückten Gefühle immer weniger unter Kontrolle.

Der Schlafwagendiener

Reunions, racial and sexual tensions, extramarital affairs and cannibalistic, undead vegetarians: hell times infinity.

Venous Hum

Julia Gaunce

The Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction is a compact anthology that presents a wide range of exemplary works in a collection of elegant proportions. The anthology's core logic is the inclusion of stories most frequently and successfully taught to undergraduates in university courses, in North America and beyond. This selection of twenty-six stories (from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries) illustrates diverse narrative styles and techniques as well as a broad spectrum of human experiences. The collection comprises useful classroom examples, recognized classics of the genre, and some very interesting, less often anthologized works. Stories are organized chronologically, are lightly annotated for the undergraduate reader, and are prefaced by engaging short introductions. Also included is a glossary of basic critical terms, with examples in many cases from the stories themselves.

The Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction

Daring to defy a world that believes old women should not be seen or heard, three women steal a barrel from a travelling show and plan to go over Niagara Falls.

The Widows

Don LePan

Marjorie Mather

Bryanne Miller

This selection of thirty-eight stories (from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries) illustrates diverse narrative styles, from the austere to the avant-garde, as well as a broad spectrum of human experiences. The collection comprises both recognized classics of the genre and some very interesting, less often anthologized works. Stories are organized chronologically, lightly annotated, and prefaced by engaging short introductions. Also included is a glossary of basic critical terms. The second edition has been updated to include more recent stories, a greater selection of international authors and works in translation, and an illustrated story (Shaun Tan’s “Grandpa’s Story”). Several luminaries of the genre, including Alice Munro, have multiple stories included in the collection.

The Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction - Second Edition

Carmen and Griffin, young and white, are head-over-heels in love. When Carmen turns into a black woman, Griffin thrills at a love turned exotic. But Carmen's transformation means trouble for Griffin's racist mother, already struggling with a new lover and a husband nicknamed God. The question is, can love be relied upon to save the day? This is a funny, sexy tale of love affairs and magical transformations.

Suzette Mayr

Books

Your next favorite book is out there