A- #AudioBookReview: The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue

The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue
Narrator: Justin Avoth
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: purchased from Audible, supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, literary fiction
Pages: 288
Length: 7 hours and 15 minutes
Published by Simon & Schuster, Simon Schuster Audio on March 18, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Emma Donoghue, the “soul-stirring” (Oprah Daily) nationally bestselling author of Room, returns with a sweeping historical novel about an infamous 1895 disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station.

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.

From an author whose “writing is superb alchemy” (Audrey Niffenegger, New York Times bestselling author), The Paris Express is an evocative masterpiece that effortlessly captures the politics, glamour, chaos, and speed that marked the end of the 19th century.

My Review:

The Paris Express is the story of a picture. The fictionalized story of a picture. In fact, the picture at left, of the wreckage of the Montparnasse train station in Paris, taken immediately after the Granville to Paris Express crashed through the flimsy wooden buffer at the end of the tracks and continued straight on through the window and out of the station onto the street below.

Welcome to “fin du XIXe siecle” Paris – that’s the end of the 19th century. To a world that is on the cusp of change, and not just because the 19th century is about to become the 20th. A change that the Paris Express itself is certainly a symbol of, as it seemingly rockets across the French countryside from Granville, on the Normandy coast, straight into Paris with few stops and a mandate to shave every second off the trip as possible.

The train is running late, and the entire crew’s Christmas bonuses are in jeopardy. As is the whole, entire train. Not that most of its passengers are aware of the latter condition until the last few racing minutes before disaster.

But that resounding crash is the END of the story. The story, however, is literally one of those stories that lives up to the phrase about it being about the journey and not the destination.

Because the story, this story, is about the people on that train, passengers and crew alike, and even about the train itself. It’s a slice of life story – made all the more tense and riveting because the reader knows the ending while the passengers do not.

Except, just possibly, one.

But along the way this ad hoc mixture that doesn’t mix, made up of the rich and the famous, the powerful and the mighty, the desperate and the determined, the resigned and the raging, from all strata of society and all walks of life, comes together for a little while, just a bit over seven hours, to form a temporary community.

Or rather, communities, as the well-heeled in First Class do not mix with the workers in Third – and those in Third keep to their own even as the eagle eye of the train’s crew ensures that no one tries to jump up to a class they are not entitled to.

In each car, there’s plenty of gossip and speculation about the others – most of it of course utterly wrong. There are arguments and debates, hidden griefs and exposed peccadillos. As each of the passengers relaxes into the company of their fellows, we get to know them even as they get to know each other.

Which makes the crash at the end all that more heart-rending, as by the time the journey ends, we want them all to survive. Even the ones who may not deserve it.

Escape Rating A-: I really enjoyed this one, and I was pretty damn surprised by that fact.

I picked this up because a friend recommended it, it sounded interesting, and I kind of decided to get the audio and start it even though I found the author’s Haven one of the most tedious things that I have ever forced myself to read and/or listen to. I know plenty of readers love this author but after my experience with Haven I’ll confess that I wasn’t at all sure why.

I have a much better idea after reading/listening to The Paris Express, and the excellent narration by Justin Avoth certainly added to my enjoyment of the story.

Based on the blurb, I came into this book expecting a combination of Erik Larson with just a bit of Murder on the Orient Express. And I was surprised at how much of that I got, minus the gathering at the end for the detective to make the ‘big reveal’ and unmask the murderer.

Because there isn’t one of those here – in spite of a story that leads one to believe there might be. Instead, this feels like a work of narrative nonfiction, which is where that reference to Larson comes in – even though the author does not make any claims to historical accuracy. Nevertheless, it takes a real historical event, the Montparnasse derailment of October 22, 1895 and does a dramatic rather than historically accurate job of telling a plausible version of how the disaster might have happened.

And it certainly grabs the reader by letting them into the thoughts, feelings and actions of the diverse crowd of people on the train. While the train may be traveling in a very linear fashion, the story is told as though weaving a tapestry with each traveler adding their bit of color to the whole.

I didn’t come into this story expecting the conversations, thoughts and feelings of those travelers to be historically accurate, so the author’s big reveal in the endnotes regarding exactly what was and what wasn’t didn’t feel like a ‘bait and switch’, although some readers might see it that way. OTOH, some readers might not read those notes at all.

As the saying goes, “Chacun à son goût” – each to their own taste.

To this reader’s taste, The Paris Express was a surprisingly absorbing read, not for the literal exposition of the train’s derailment, but rather for the portrait of fin de siècle France and the thoughts and feelings of the people who lived within, as exemplified by a fascinating cast of characters.

Leaving me very glad that I decided to give this author another try.

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