She Treads Softly: The Paris Express

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

The Paris Express

The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue
3/18/25; 288 pages
S&S/Summit Books

The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue is highly recommended historical fiction based on the infamous 1895 derailment at the Paris Montparnasse train station. The various characters in the novel are based on real people who were on the train, as explained at the end. Also intertwined in the plot are the real social issues of the day.

Donoghue does an exceptional job capturing the period details concerning the train and the people on it. There are a large number of characters to keep track of, but this allows the reader to meet a wide variety of average people on the train, while becoming privy to their lives and their place in society. The trip unfolds through the thoughts of these passengers. The main character is Mado Pelletier, a French anarchist, who boards the train with a homemade bomb. Knowing her intentions increases the tension.

Readers will know that the impending disaster is going to happen when they reach Paris. The excellent writing captures the atmosphere and makes a historical event come to life.

Thanks to S&S/Summit Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via Edelweiss. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.