Midnight and Sometimes Later

A railroad novel, "Midnight and Sometimes Later" tells the story of three men who work on freight trains, in Minnesota, in the 1970s--and various women with whom they are involved. The protagonist, Lou Maki, describes his role in two romantic triangles as they form and disintegrate. The railroad bureaucracy demands its workers to lie, repeatedly and ever more ingeniously, in order to get any time free from work. This background of lie-telling sits in the middle ground of the tale, while, in...