Midnight Train by Matt Haig audiobook review – a fun, fun ride | Books

TReasons to Live author Matt Haig’s latest novel begins with a man with a heart condition. Veteran businessman Wilbur Budd is already feeling strange when he receives a phone call from his ex-wife, Maggie, who he hasn’t heard from in years. “I wanted to hear your voice,” she tells him angrily. A few minutes after the call, Wilbur collapsed on the lawn and died.

What sounds like the end of the story is, in fact, the beginning when Wilbur finds himself standing on a train platform with his mind “vibrating as if it had come from a giant cymbal”. The train arrived and a woman got off and introduced herself as Agnes. It is said to be the ghost of a bookseller who once owned a shop that Wilbur visited as a child. She will be guiding him on his journey through the past, taking a break from development including the untimely death of his brother and Wilbur and Maggie’s vacation in Venice. “This is death,” Agnes tells him. “Where your life shines before you. This is how it happens. Fast and slow. Like life…”

With shades of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, The Midnight Train is a heartwarming story, despite the vivid themes of death and the afterlife. The author is Happy Valley and McMafia artist James Norton who brings a rare softness and gentle longing to his performance. As Wilbur reflects on the past, he realizes things he could have done better in his life.

Available via Canongate, 8hr 36min

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