This book provides an interesting mix of reality with fiction. Emma Donoghue, award winning novelist has used her considerable skills to create excitement and mystery around a real-life 1895 train crash. She fills the story with both people who lived at the time alongside an array of fictional characters.
We spend almost the entire book on the doomed train. We know it’s going to crash—it is based on a real event — but are on edge throughout the book as we become more and more invested in what is going to happen to the people on board.
The story is told within the framework of the restraints of French society at the time. The amenities and personalities of the three distinct class cars, the pressure the staff feel to reach Paris on time, the requests of cabinet members who cause delay through needing special favors despite their insistence they get to an important meeting on time.
The train leaves from Granville, a small town on the Normandy coast. It begins with a description of the varied people you would expect to board a train.The first character we meet is Mado Pelletier. From the beginning, she seems unhappy with her life as she purchases some supplies. The reader feels her discontent.
Donaghue dots the narrative with small facts that create a picture of the time. A young boy is boarding the train solo, traveling to meet his father. He is worried by the discrepancy of time on the two station clocks. He is reassured by the train guard, that the time discrepancy by the clocks at the station entrance and the platform is not real. One is set ahead to motivate tardy passengers. A nugget from the past that enriches what we learn about the times.
There are a plethora of characters. Maybe too many. At first, I was overwhelmed by the number but I realized it didn’t really matter, what was important was how she drew the distinctions between both the physical differences and the experience of the riders.
The train employees also play an important role. We see the pressure they are under to keep things going smoothly and particularly, the stress the stoker and driver are under to get the train in on time regardless of the problems that arise. Bonuses depend on it. And there is also the underlying love story between the two men that give texture to life on and off the train.
Some of the characters are based on real people. There is a delay to accommodate Jules-Felix Gevelot, an ammunition businessman who travels with his wife but has gay inclinations. African American painter, Henry Tanner, is unsure and uncomfortable with the freer attitudes of the French having come from the Jim Crowe laws of the American South..Alice Guy confronts sexism as she pursue the idea of moving pictures to her clueless boss, the head of Gaumont and Company.
Fictional characters of interest: the wise, worldly Russian immigrant, Blonska, who has seen much in her long life; the oyster woman , the coffee seller, the young pregnant girl. A wealthy family traveling, unwilling or frightened to acknowledge the severity of their child’s illness. All reflective of the breadth of life experience in their own way.
And of course, Mado, the bitter girl willing to kill herself and innocents for a cause she may or may not understand. The longer she spends on the train the more conflicted she becomes particularly when she is summoned to do interact directly to help with a situation.
Although there were a few too many characters to remember, the few who stood out with well fleshed out. What happens in the course of a simple train ride is a microcosm of society.
This crash at Montparnasse Station in Paris might be a footnote in history but Donaghue brought to life a time and place that mirrors society through the years.
An exciting read.
Emma Donaghue is an award winning novelist, film writer, and playwright. Best known for her novel Room that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Commonwealth Writers Prize, and Orange Prize for fiction.
She adapted the novel into a film screenplay winning anAcademy Award for best adapted screenplay. Her other novels include Learned by Heart, Haven, Akin, and Frog Music. Born in Dublin, she now resides in Canada.
Reader’s Cafe 