Emma Donoghue’s latest historical novel, The Paris Express, is a remarkable achievement that weaves together multiple lives aboard a train hurtling toward disaster. Set on October 22, 1895, the narrative follows the Granville-to-Paris Express as it makes its fateful journey toward the Montparnasse Station crash—an accident immortalized in one of the most extraordinary photographs of the 19th century.
What makes this novel exceptional is Donoghue’s meticulous attention to both historical detail and character development. Like a skilled orchestral conductor, she introduces us to a diverse collection of passengers from all walks of life: politicians, artists, anarchists, workers, immigrants, and the train’s crew. Rather than overwhelming the reader with too many perspectives, she brings each character vividly to life through small, telling details—a Russian émigré’s twisted spine, an American painter’s fear of being challenged on public transit, a young anarchist’s lunch bucket with a deadly secret.
The narrative unfolds in real-time, creating an escalating tension as the train makes its scheduled (and unscheduled) stops. The chapter headings—marked by precise times and locations—function as both historical anchors and drumbeats of impending doom. This technique, coupled with Donoghue’s fluid prose and sharp dialogue, creates a reading experience that feels both expansive in its social canvas and intensely intimate in its psychological portraiture.
Characters in Motion: Microcosms of Belle Époque Society
Donoghue populates her train with a fascinating cross-section of late 19th-century society. Many are based on real historical figures, as the extensive author’s note reveals, while others are inventions who feel no less authentic.
Among the most compelling characters:
- Mado Pelletier: A young woman radicalized by poverty and injustice, carrying a homemade bomb in her lunch bucket. Her internal struggle forms one of the novel’s most powerful emotional arcs.
- Henry Ossawa Tanner: An African American painter escaping American racism in the more tolerant artistic circles of Paris, dealing with a lifetime of trauma triggered by simple encounters.
- Marcelle de Heredia: A brilliant young medical student of Cuban descent who carries the burden of scientific knowledge that both empowers and isolates her.
- Blonska: An elderly Russian émigré who serves as both social conscience and midwife when crisis strikes.
- The crew: Driver Guillaume Pellerin and stoker Victor Garnier, whose complex relationship blends professional respect, physical intimacy, and shared responsibility.
What’s striking is how Donoghue refuses to reduce any character to a simple type. Even the most privileged—like the politician Albert Christophle seeking a furtive sexual encounter—are rendered with psychological depth rather than mere caricature. This compassionate yet unflinching gaze extends to all her characters, regardless of their moral standing or social position.
The Train as Character: An Unstoppable Force
Perhaps the most innovative aspect of The Paris Express is Emma Donoghue’s decision to grant consciousness to Engine 721 herself. These brief, poetic interludes provide a non-human perspective that adds unexpected emotional resonance:
“This is not the first time Engine 721 has encountered one of those rare humans who are careless of their own lives or even positively eager to throw them away.”
The train becomes both observer and participant, a mechanical entity entwined with human fate. These sections could have felt gimmicky, but instead, they provide moments of philosophical perspective amid the human drama.
History as Tapestry, Not Mere Backdrop
What distinguishes Donoghue from many historical novelists is her ability to integrate period detail without becoming didactic. She never simply “explains” the 1890s to readers—instead, she reveals this world through the thoughts and interactions of her characters, making the historical setting feel lived-in rather than researched.
The novel touches on many currents of the era:
- The anarchist movements sweeping Europe
- Class divisions reinforced by railway design itself
- Colonial exploitation and emerging resistance
- Technological advancements changing perceptions of time and space
- Women beginning to claim professional spaces once closed to them
- The emerging cinematic art form
Rather than treating these as mere period markers, Donoghue explores how they shaped individual lives and collective experiences. The result is a historical novel that feels urgently relevant to contemporary concerns about inequality, technology, and human connection.
Temporal Mastery: The Ticking Clock
Structurally, the novel employs a classic “ticking clock” framework, yet Donoghue transforms this familiar device into something more profound. As the train hurtles toward its inevitable crash, time itself becomes a character—elastic, subjective, and philosophically complex.
The novel repeatedly returns to questions of temporality:
- How railway standardization imposed uniform “Paris time” on diverse local experiences
- The intimate relationship between time and mortality
- How small delays can cascade into disaster
- The subjective experience of time during moments of crisis
When one character quotes Pascal—“We anticipate the future as if it were too slow in coming, as if to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to halt its rapid flight”—it encapsulates the temporal preoccupations that run throughout the narrative.
Where the Novel Falls Short
Despite its considerable achievements, The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue occasionally struggles with the ambition of its own scope. Some potentially fascinating characters receive less development than they deserve. John Synge, for example, feels somewhat shortchanged compared to others, appearing more as a historical cameo than a fully realized character.
Additionally, a few scenes where events converge—particularly the childbirth in Third Class—occasionally strain credibility in their convenient timing, though Donoghue’s skilled prose mostly carries readers through these moments.
There’s also a curious emotional restraint in the crash sequence itself. After such meticulous buildup, the actual disaster unfolds with less visceral impact than might be expected. While this understatement may be intentional—emphasizing fate’s arbitrary nature—it creates a slight imbalance in the novel’s dramatic structure.
Comparative Context: Donoghue’s Evolution
For readers familiar with Emma Donoghue’s previous work, The Paris Express represents both continuation and departure. Like her bestselling Room (2010), it demonstrates her skill at creating distinct voices and exploring human resilience. However, where Room achieved its power through claustrophobic intensity, The Paris Express operates on a much broader canvas.
The novel bears stronger connections to her recent historical works like The Pull of the Stars (2020) and Haven (2022), showing her continued interest in how individuals navigate historical forces beyond their control. Yet The Paris Express feels more ambitious than these predecessors in its structural complexity and thematic range.
Readers might also find echoes of other historical novels centered around transportation disasters, such as Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad or Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway, though Donoghue’s approach is distinctly her own. In its intricate structure and profound themes, “The Paris Express” shares a closer resemblance to sophisticated ensemble narratives such as Michael Ondaatje’s “The English Patient” and Anthony Doerr’s “All the Light We Cannot See.”
Final Assessment: A Journey Worth Taking
The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue succeeds brilliantly as both historical fiction and character study. Donoghue has crafted a novel that feels simultaneously panoramic and intimate, exploring how individual lives intersect with larger historical currents. Her prose moves with the precision and power of the train at its center—controlled yet ultimately unstoppable.
What lingers most is the novel’s profound humanity. Even as it hurtles toward disaster, Donoghue finds moments of connection, compassion, and unexpected grace. By the time we reach the spectacular crash—recreated with cinematic vividness—we care deeply about the fates of these people thrown together by chance and circumstance.
For readers seeking historical fiction that transcends mere period detail to explore timeless questions of fate, connection, and meaning, The Paris Express offers a journey well worth taking. Like the famous photograph that inspired it, the novel captures a moment of spectacular disruption while revealing the complex human stories behind the image.
The Paris Express confirms Emma Donoghue’s place as one of our most skilled and empathetic historical novelists—an author capable of turning meticulous research into living, breathing fiction that speaks powerfully to our present moment.
