THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN

An elderly man’s posthumous journey back through his life has unexpected consequences for several people, and lessons for everyone.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that readers adore any novel set in a reading group, bookshop, or library, from the terribly sad (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, 2008) to the puzzle-heavy (Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, 2012) to the downright clever (The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, 2007). Haig, who’s already written The Midnight Library (2020), mines a similar vein in this novel centered on a bookseller named Wilbur Budd; place this one in the seriously sentimental category. Wilbur dies at 81 just after receiving a call from his ex-wife, Maggie. He finds himself on a classic steam-train carriage, accompanied by a younger version of the woman who founded the bookstore he turned into a global conglomerate. As Mrs. Agnes Bagdale explains, he’s on a trip to significant places and events from his life, but he’s forbidden from interfering in them, thus possibly changing the course of other people’s lives. True to his maverick tendencies, Wilbur struggles with the three rules of the train (“You get on and off the train as required. You never try and speak to yourself. And you must never be there when you fall asleep”) and struggles even more mightily as he realizes that Maggie was his true love and lifelong lodestar. While some moments verge on maudlin, as when Wilbur and Maggie goggle at Venice during their honeymoon, these are tempered by quieter observations, as when Wilbur’s oldest friend, Charlie, tells him frankly during lunch at a trendy restaurant that his constant ambition is a failing. This isn’t a subtle book and it’s not trying to be; it’s urging readers to think about their own choices, wherever they find themselves.

A shaky balance between saccharine and sage will nevertheless appeal to the author’s fans and readers seeking balm.