A beautiful literary novel that won Canada's renowned Giller Prize, published for the first time in the UK

WINNER OF THE 2022 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE
SHORTLISTED AT THE 2023 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARDS
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.

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 criss-crosses the country. So when the passengers call him George, he has to smile, 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.

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-deprived 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.