The Midnight Train by Matt Haig

Matt Haig’s The Midnight Train returns to the reflective, imaginative territory that made The Midnight Library such a widely discussed novel. While not a direct continuation, the book inhabits the same philosophical landscape, exploring the weight of regret and the possibility of understanding one’s life from a new perspective.

At its centre is Wilbur Budd, a wealthy but solitary bookseller whose life ends abruptly after the collapse of a relationship that once defined him. What follows is not a simple conclusion but the beginning of a curious and contemplative journey.

Wilbur finds himself aboard the mysterious Midnight Train, an otherworldly vehicle that moves through the landscapes of his own past. Each stop allows him to revisit the moments that shaped him, from childhood memories to the defining episodes of adulthood.

Guiding him through this strange passage is Agnes Deborah Amaryllis Bagsdale, an eccentric bookseller who once nurtured Wilbur’s love of literature and imagination when he was a boy. Her presence gives the journey both warmth and quiet authority, as she helps Wilbur confront the experiences he has spent much of his life trying to forget.

Among these memories, the most powerful revolve around Maggie, the woman Wilbur loved most deeply. Their relationship represents the emotional centre of the novel. Through recollections of their honeymoon in Venice and the years that followed, Haig gradually reveals how small decisions and unspoken fears altered the direction of their lives. As Wilbur revisits these scenes, the possibility emerges that the past might not be entirely fixed. The temptation to intervene becomes increasingly difficult to resist, raising questions about whether altering one moment might unravel everything that follows.

The novel carries a gentle speculative framework, yet its emotional concerns remain firmly grounded in recognisable human experience. Haig is interested less in the mechanics of time travel than in the emotional logic of memory. The train serves as a narrative device, allowing Wilbur to view his life with the clarity he never possessed while living it. Regret, forgiveness and acceptance weave through the narrative, encouraging reflection on how people evaluate their own histories.

Wilbur himself is drawn as an introspective figure whose flaws are neither exaggerated nor excused. He is not heroic in any conventional sense. Instead he is recognisably human, capable of tenderness yet prone to hesitation and self doubt. His gradual willingness to examine the consequences of his actions forms the novel’s quiet arc of transformation. The supporting figures who appear along the way, particularly Maggie and Agnes, provide contrasting perspectives on loyalty, courage and compassion.

Haig’s prose is characteristically accessible, favouring clarity and emotional directness over stylistic complexity. The narrative moves between humour, melancholy and philosophical reflection with ease, often pausing to consider how ordinary moments acquire meaning only in retrospect. Readers familiar with Haig’s earlier work will recognise his interest in life’s fragile balance between despair and hope.

What ultimately distinguishes The Midnight Train is its insistence that a life is made not only of grand turning points but of countless smaller choices. By guiding Wilbur through the stations of his own past, the novel suggests that understanding one’s life may depend less on changing it than on learning to see it fully. In doing so, Haig offers a thoughtful meditation on the ways memory, love and regret shape the stories people tell about themselves.

Reviewer: Chris Reed

Canongate