Review: "The Paris Express," Emma Donoghue

It's 1898, and a train is headed from Granville, on the Normandy coast, to Paris' Montparnasse staion. Mado Pelletier, a young anarchist, is seated uneasily in third class, clutching her lunch bucket. If she turns it over, the bomb she built inside it will go off.

And so the reader is sent on a dizzying, nail-biting ride as a variety of fascinating characters apparently hurtle toward their demise. It’s a fact, documented by photographs: catastrophe struck this train. But what, exactly, is going to happen? The story of this journey is propulsive and suspenseful—and yet, because we get to know the characters so well, strangely cordial.

A wide range of fascinating people are on board, in three separate classes of cars. A North African coffee seller in third class wears a huge urn on his back for dispensing drinks. Maurice is a young boy who is set to disembark before Paris to meet his father. Oh, no he’s missed his stop! Considering we know disaster awaits, that moment was heartbreaking.

Blonska, a Russian émigré, is an odd do-gooder; a hunchback, a knitter. Marcelle de Heredia, in first class, dispenses unwanted medical advice to a privileged family. A private carriage arrives en route and is attached to the train. A politician and his invalid wife—Mado is satisfied by the thought of blowing up such a personage.

Donoghue dots her cast with real people who lived in Paris at the time, but weren’t on the train. The flamboyant Annah Lamor, who once kept house for the artist Paul Gauguin, wears a huge hat festooned with dead birds. Henry Tanner, a black American painter, wrestles with the freedom France offers him. The Irish playwright John Synge is fascinated by Annah.

The crew of four—Guillaume, Victor, Leon and Jean—are also depicted in exquisite detail.

A woman boards the train at one of its four stops, very pregnant. Mado has managed to not think about her victims, but ignoring this situation takes effort. Then the woman goes into labor. Mado has already told Blonska about her mother’s many miscarriages, so the older woman presses her into service. 

The train hurtles on. The addition of the private carriage has made them late. The engineer and the stoker are desperate to make up lost time. The train speeds up…the lunch bucket teeters…a baby’s head appears…a boy awakes and realizes he’s missed his stop…

I read The Paris Express in about three days (most books take me at least five). I was propelled along the tracks along with the characters. I do advise readers not to research the real-life historical incident before reading the book. Instead, take my word for it: Hop aboard and relish the ride.