Adult book club: "The Sleeping Car Porter"

Join fellow community members for a discussion of The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr. Please note the new date.

Participants can attend at the library or via Zoom. All are welcome!

Registration is required by 6 p.m. on the day of the discussion. For those attending virtually, the Zoom link will be sent to the email address you used to register. The meeting link and reading guide will be emailed on the day of the event.

We have a limited number of copies for registrants to borrow, based on the order that they register. Registrants will be contacted if a copy is available. If all copies are spoken for, you can try to find one by:

• Placing a hold on a regular circulating print, ebook or e-audiobook copy.
• Checking at North Vancouver District Library or West Vancouver Memorial Library.

Need assistance finding a copy? Or have any other questions? Email info@nvcl.ca or call 604-998-3450.

About the book

"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" [publisher].

Registration is closed