Suzette Mayr – författare

WINNER OF THE 2022 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZEPUBLISHERS WEEKLY TOP 20 LITERARY FICTION BOOKS OF 2022OPRAH DAILY: BOOKS TO READ BY THE FIRE?When a mudslide strands a train, Baxter, a sleeping car porter, must contend with the perils of white passengers, ghosts, and his secret love affair.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.

Winner of the W.O. Mitchell Book Prize Winner of the 2012 Relit Award for Best Novel Longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize Shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction Shortlisted for the Alberta Literary Award for Best Fiction Shortlisted for the W.O. Mitchell Award for Best Calgary Fiction A Globe and Mail Best Book of 2011 A seventeen-year-old boy, bullied and heartbroken, hangs himself. And although he 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 counselor, 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 school.And Walter, who's secretly been 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. Suzette Mayr is the author of three previous novels: Moon Honey, The Widows, and Venous Hum. The Widows was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book in the Canada-Caribbean region, and has been translated into German. Moon Honey was shortlisted for the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction and the Henry Kreisel Award for Best First Book. Suzette Mayr lives and works in Calgary, Alberta.

FEATURED ON MICHELLE OBAMA'S INSTAGRAMSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 DUBLIN LITERARY AWARDWINNER OF THE 2022 GILLER PRIZEWINNER OF THE CITY OF CALGARY W.O. MITCHELL BOOK PRIZEWINNER OF THE 2023 GEORGES BUGNET AWARD FOR FICTIONFINALIST FOR THE 2023 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD FOR ENGLISH-LANGUAGE FICTIONPUBLISHERS WEEKLY TOP 20 LITERARY FICTION BOOKS OF 2022OPRAH DAILY: BOOKS TO READ BY THE FIRETHE GLOBE 100: THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022CBC BOOKS: THE BEST CANADIAN FICTION OF 2022SHORTLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 REPUBLIC OF CONSCIOUSNESS PRIZEWhen 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 affairThe 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