By the end of his midnight train ride, however, his sense of purpose will be rekindled in ways he could not imagine.īy contrast, Mahogany the Subway Butcher is much happier with his lot. He works late, supposedly to avoid the distractions of office chatter, but in truth he feels disconnected from others. Leon’s accountancy job doesn’t offer much respite either. One night Leon falls asleep on the subway, only to awake alone, thinking he has missed his stop, and wondering why a curtain is blocking his view into the next car. To compound his disappointment, there’s a killer called the Subway Butcher slaughtering people. Leon Kaufman moved to New York around three months ago – a city he had always loved from afar – but that romance has soured. Oh, and did I mention the reports of someone attacking passengers? For most of us, that’s enough to swear off subways for life, but for Clive Barker that experience inspired his first short story.

Unfortunately, he falls asleep, waking only at the end of the line, where he is dumped on a deserted platform at midnight. It’s the 1970s, New York City, and a young Liverpudlian playwright is riding the subway.

If there’s a buffet car, best avoid it… The Book As the nights draw in, many of us are more likely to use public transport, but would you want to ride with the Subway Butcher? It’s Halloween, it’s another Book Versus Film, it’s time to board Clive Barker’s The Midnight Meat Train.

The forbidden clive barker summary