A Train In The Night: The Tragedy of Lac-Megantic by Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny and Christian Quesnel

A Train In The Night is a graphic novel account of the terrible train accident at Lac-Megantic in Quebec in the summer of 2013. 

The story opens with six of the Lac-Megantic victims talking about the derailment : a young girl asks an older woman if she knows the men responsible for the disaster. The older woman tells her that she doesn't because "They laid their plans hundreds of thousands of kilometers from our town..."

One morning in 2012 the mayor of Nantes had two men from the railway company visit his office. They inform him that from now on there will be only one man on the oil trains passing through - the train will be a "one-man crew". The mayor is stunned that only one man will be on a train with "hundreds of tank cars full of explosive".  They tell him that the minister has already approved such a crew. The mayor asks what will happen if the brakes fail? Their response is that there is an automatic device called a "dead man's switch" which will stop the train. Nantes mayor doubts the train will stop on the rotten rails. 

In disbelief, the mayor calls the Minister of Transport's office to confirm what he's heard. They tell him that the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway is a "first-rate company" which they support and that the one man train is completely safe and has been approved. 

The story moves far from Nantes to the "great, glorious prairie of North Dakota, home to many Indigenous peoples. They were forced from their land by the U.S. government who broke the treaties. Beneath the vast, fertile plains and the wide, open sky, was "black gold" - oil in the Bakken shale. An estimated thirty to forty billion barrels. 

Instead of buffalo, "17,000 monsters of iron and steel", oil rigs filled the land. The oil was extracted by fracking, in which many toxins are injected into the shale to force out the oil and gas. The fresh air has been contaminated with benzene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and hydrogen sulfide, while the water is contaminated with selenium and lead.

It is on June 30, 2013, in North Dakota that the Lac-Megantic story begins. Canadian Pacific Railway controls the shipping in of drilling equipment and the transport out of crude oil to refineries and ports in North Dakota. In 2013, 140,000 tank cars transported oil out of state. On June 30, 2013, 250 DOT-407 tanker trucks travel to New Town, to fill 75 DOT-111 tank cars, part of CP Train No. 606-282. The DOT-111 tank cars are too fragile to transport the oil which has been classified as 1267 Class 3, PGI - the most dangerous and most explosive. They are used though because they are cheap to rent. Instead, the cargo's rating is deliberately altered to PG III, as safe oil, non-explosive. Train No. 606-282 leaves on June 30th for the Irving Refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, a journey of over three thousand kilometers.

On July 1, CP invoices Irving Oil for Train 606-282. On July 5th, the train arrives in Cote-Saint-Luc, Montreal where Montreal, Maine and Atlantic takes over. It is renamed MMA-002. MMA has been flagged by various transportation agencies in both the U.S. and Canada as having a poor safety record. In the MMA office in Farnham, Quebec, Engine 5017 is put on as the lead on the train despite having serious problems. The train is inspected by Transport Canada and given permission to continue on. Tom Harding is the lone driver on MMA-002 to Lac-Megantic. From there, an American driver will take the train to New Brunswick.

Despite contacting MMA about the ongoing engine problems, Harding is told to continue on. The train arrives at the West Siding Switch at 11:04 PM on July 5th. Engine 5017 is left running unattended with seven brakes applied by Tom Harding. When his taxi arrives, the driver notes to Tom that the 5017 engine is "spitting oil". At 11:38 PM, 911 is called to report a train fire. The Quebec Provincial Police call the MMA Control Centre at 11:50PM and are told that the train contains tanker cars of oil. The firefighters arrive and put out the fire but also shut down Engine 5017. By doing this the air supply to the air supply to the engine's pneumatic brakes is cut and eventually the remaining air escapes. The other four engines on the train had been shut off and had no brakes. The stage is now set for the disaster that will claim forty-seven lives and devastate the town and the lives of the people of Lac-Megantic.

Discussion

A Train In The Night is an informative graphic nonfiction account of the Lac-Megantic railway disaster. Saint-Cerny employs a victim of the disaster as narrator, an older woman who explains to a young child-victim the events leading up to the tragedy and identifying those really responsible. The events begin thousands of miles away, in the oil-rich shales of North Dakota. Saint-Cerny who arrived in Lac-Megantic five days after what she calls "Night Zero", was determined to seek out the truth, after discrepancies began to appear in reports about the accident. As she writes in her piece, Megantic, the sad telling of a capitalist story" at the back of the book, 
"From the start the only official explanation was a simplistic one: The disaster was blamed on the error of just one man, alone in the mountains, who was alleged to have applied an insufficient number of brakes when parking his train. And from the start I decided that this time I would uncover the truth: Who had made it possible for one man, by himself, a single employee on the bottom rung of the hierarchy, to be allowed to leave the keys on the seat of a locomotive hauling seventy-two bombs along defective track and to leave it running all night?"

What Saint-Cerny uncovered is a trail of greed and corruption in the railway and oil industry, pushed by investors and shareholders and enabled by officials and ministers within the U.S. and Canadian governments. From the fracking industry that has poisoned the soil and water in North Dakota to the deliberate actions of CP and MMA and many other rail companies to  prioritize profits over worker safety and environmental protections, Lac-Megantic was an accident waiting to happen.

A Train In the Night sets out the story in two parts: The First Heartbreak and The Second Heartbreak. In The First Heartbreak the stage initially with the situation in Nantes and the mayor doing his due diligence in checking to see if MMA and CP were sanctioned to use the one man crew on an oil train travelling on rotted rails. The decisions that will result in the deaths of forty-seven people in Lac-Megantic were made thousands of miles away and began decades and even centuries before. From stripping Indigenous peoples of the rights to their land to access the mineral rights below that land, to modern-day fracking in North Dakota, to the hostile takeover of CP Rail where sky-high dividends and profits were possible as a result of cuts to the workforce and safety measures, each play their part. Readers then follow CP Train 606-282 with its hazardous cargo of oil to Lac-Megantic, Quebec. At each step of the journey, Saint-Cerny informs her readers on the safety rules breached, and how any employee who questioned those breaches was simply told to move along.

In The Second Heartbreak, Saint-Cerny exposes the events after the derailment, an expose of corruption, greed and complicity, of lies. and broken laws. It is about the false narrative of the derailment, the miscarriage of justice in blaming one individual who had no recourse to do otherwise, and the successful efforts of the Canadian government to thwart any kind of inquiry or investigation into the tragedy. Saint-Cerny doesn't shrink from naming names, from the unrepentant MMA CEO Edward Burkhardt, to the Canadian Ministers of Transport Denis Lebel (2011-2013) and John Baird (2008-2013), to Hunter Harrison CEO of CP Rail (2012 - 2017) Canadian astronaut and Minister of Transport (2015-2021) who blocked both federal and public inquiries into the disaster. 

The author also shows how Milton Freedman's "Shock Strategy" was implemented in the town of Lac-Megantic, by "consultants" shown as birds, whose goal is to remake the town without any real changes to prevent the recurrence of another derailment. This is done while highlighting the voices of the people who simply want what's left of their town back.

Quesnel's illustrations are visceral: for example, the shock of the explosion is done in red, with the images of four of the victims killed by the explosion shown first against a peaceful blue background and in subsequent pages blacked out first on a white page, then against a deep red background with the Sacred Heart of Jesus statue at the bottom. Marc Garneau and John Baird, Canadian government ministers who enable the removal or reduction of significant safety and environmental protections are portrayed behind a bleeding Maple Leaf. And, in another comic panel, Lady Justice is shown decapitated with a black crow on top, signifying the thwarting of justice in the court trial in which a victim is tried rather than the true perpetrators of the disaster.

The names and ages of the forty-seven victims are also listed on a separate page for readers to know their names. There is also a section at the back titled Documentary Fragments which explores the inspiration for some of artist Christian Quesnel's artwork.

A Train In The Night is informative and timely considering the recent event in East Palestine, Ohio. As Saint-Cerny points out in her short piece at the back of this graphic nonfiction, "Digging up the truth is one of the few weapons..." that can be used to prevent future tragedies. 

Book Details:

A Train In The Night: The Tragedy of Lac-Megantic by Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny and Christian Quesnel
Toronto: Between The Lines    2022
87 pp.

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna and the Race to Understand Our Genetic Code by Walter Isaacson with Sarah Durand

Jennifer Doudna was born on February 19, 1964 in Washington, D.C., the oldest of three girls. Her father dreamed of becoming a professor of American literature. To achieve this dream, he earned a Ph.D. and eventually was offered a job at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo. Doudna's family moved to the islands in 1971 when she was seven-years-old.

Doudna, who was often called a "haole", a derogatory term for non-Native Hawaiians, felt lonely and uncomfortable in her new home. But things changed for the better when her family moved out of Hilo and into a new development on the slopes of Mauna Loa volcano. In the smaller school, Doudna felt less like an outsider and began to thrive. She skipped grade 5 and made a new friend in Lisa Hinkley whose boldness to be herself, encouraged Doudna.

As Doudna and Hinkley explored the sugar cane fields, the meadows, and lava-flow caves, she became intrigued by the many wonders of nature she discovered: a spider with no eyes, a thorny vine called hilahila or "sleeping grass". Two important people fostered Doudna's curiosity: a family friend and biology professor named Don Hemmes, and her father. Hemmes showed Doudna different fungi he was studying while her father, an avid reader gave Doudna a copy of The Double Helix by James D. Watson. This book, which explained how Watson and Frances Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA, was inspiring to Doudna. Their story made Doudna realize that science could be fun and be used to uncover the secrets of the natural world. But the treatment of Rosalind Franklin, a  woman structural biologist whose significant contribution to Watson and Crick's work went unrecognized, made her aware that although women could become great scientists, they might not see their contributions acknowledged in the same way as male scientists.

In 1981, Doudna attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, studying chemistry and went on to do graduate work at Harvard in 1985. As part of her lab rotation, Doudna studied with Roberto Kolter, head of the graduate studies program, and with Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist studying yeast DNA.

As a Ph.D. student, Doudna worked on the structure of  RNA. In 1991, Doudna and her husband Tom Griffin moved to Boulder, Colorado where she did her postdoctoral work with structural biologist Thomas Cech. It was Cech who shared the Nobel Prize for discovering ribozymes. Griffin and Doudna eventually divorced.

Doudna was determined to uncover the three-dimensional structure of RNA, hoping to uncover how "...its twists and folds bring atoms together and cause reactions that allow the RNA to replicate."

In 1993, Doudna accepted a job at Yale as a professor where she continued her research on determining the structure of RNA. Accompanying her to Yale, was Jamie Cate, with whom she would eventually marry in 2000 and have a son Andrew in 2002. 

In the fall of 1995, while visiting her terminally ill father, Doudna received a map that revealed the structure of of a specific RNA molecule's three-dimensional shape. "The structure Doudna and her team had discovered explained how RNA could be an enzyme and be able to slice, connect, and copy itself." Doudna and Cate published their discovery: this was Doudna's first major scientific success.

It would be a chance discovery by a Spanish graduate student, Francisco Mojica at the University of Alicante that would change everything. In an organism called archaea that are similar to bacteria, Mojica discovered fourteen identical DNA sequences that were repeated at regular intervals. Other researchers also made similar discoveries in other bacteria. Mojica coined the term CRISPR - "clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats" for this sequence. He soon discovered "...that CRISPR was a type of immune system" that bacteria had evolved in their battle against bacteriophages or viruses that attack them. They could also pass this immunity onto their offspring by incorporating some of the virus's genetic material. Soon researchers discovered specific CRISPR associated enzymes - called Cas which were able to insert bits of the virus's DNA into the bacteria's DNA. 

Doudna became involved in this research because she was an expert in RNA interference - at this time the mechanism believed to be at work here. Doudna wanted to find out what CRISPR was made of and try to understand how it worked. It was this path that would uncover the most amazing discoveries and lead to a future not only with the potential to heal but also the potential for abuse. But for Doudna personally, it would snag her science's most coveted prize - the Nobel Prize!

Discussion

The Code Breaker is a biography of Nobel-prizing winning structural biologist, Jennifer Doudna, her journey from an insecure young girl who saw herself as an outsider to a world expert on the structure of RNA molecules and the gene-editing tool CRISPR and ultimately a Nobel Prize winner is inspiring. Isaacson focuses on the people and events in Doudna's early life that helped her transition from loner to team player, from a child curious about the natural world to accomplished scientist. Like so many women scientists before her, it was the influence of her father that set Doudna on the path to becoming a scientist.

But The Code Breaker is also the story of scientists in a race to decode RNA molecular structure and in the process discovering a powerful tool that may allow us to change our genetic makeup in ways we cannot yet comprehend.

The Code Breaker is divided into seven parts with the first four parts focused on Doudna's education as well as explaining the detailed science of the molecular research Doudna and other scientists were involved in during the 1990's and 2000's, including the discovery of CRISPR. Parts Five and Six deal with CRISPR babies and the events surrounding Chinese biologist He Jiankui who created three CRISPR babies in defiance of international protocols against editing genes in human embryos. Part Six explores the moral questions a new technology like gene-editing pose, especially since there is the potential for these tools to be used in very questionable ways. Part Seven explores the efforts Doudna and other scientists made during the Covid-19 pandemic in using CRISPR to create fast, efficient testing.

It is Isaacson's discussion of the ethical questions that gene-editing poses that is probably the most interesting aspect of this biography. Almost immediately after Doudna-Charpentier published their groundbreaking paper on the structure and working of CRISPR-Cas9 in June of 2012,  Doudna began to have serious reservations about its potential for misuse. As it turned out, she was right to be worried. In 2018, a young, ambitious Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit the CCR5 gene in three viable human embryos, which were then brought to term. This was done in defiance of agreed but unenforceable international protocols against germline editing of human embryos. The moral and ethical dilemmas were now real.

Isaacson spends considerable effort discussing Jiankui's research, the moral and bioethical questions gene-editing raises, as well as Doudna's efforts to determine where and when CRISPR ought to be used,  but it is done, at times using the euphemistic terms that frequently bog down modern bioethical discussions. 

At times the ethical issues are framed from a perspective that tends to ignore the ongoing serious, moral and ethical questions that continue to be unresolved for technologies that have been used for decades. For example, Isaacson relates that Doudna's teenage son seemed unconcerned about the moral issues regarding gene-editing. Isaacson writes that Doudna, wondered "if history will treat germline editing like IVF, which was very controversial when it first happened." However, there are many, many ongoing bioethical and moral issues, decades on, regarding the use of  IVF, despite the large number of people using the procedure. For example, there are over one million frozen IVF embryos in the United States alone and there is no consensus as to what to do with them. The IVF industry is largely unregulated and there are countless stories about the mix-ups in labs of embryos, of questionable parentage and botched creation of embryos. IVF is also not without serious risks to women, to the children born using this procedure and has a success rate of  only thirty percent. There is also considerable evidence that an immoral IVF-surrogacy industry in poorer nations, exploiting poor women, has developed. To compare future gene-editing to the way IVF has developed, is to realize that there will likely be many unforeseen problems. In fact, IVF proceeded without the resolution of many of these issues, and it's likely gene-editing will too.

In another example, Isaacson uses the phrase "fertilized eggs", an inaccurate term since these are now human blastocysts or zygotes. They are not simply biological cells but nascent human beings.  In his discussion of preimplantation genetic diagnosis Isaacson writes, "A couple who knows they carry the gene (for Huntington's) could decide to have a baby through IVF in order to screen their embryos for the disease. If the parents can produce enough fertilized eggs, the ones with Huntington's can be eliminated." The term "eliminated" is a euphemism for allowing a very young human embryo to die simply because it has a disease. PGD is a process of creating large numbers of human embryos (a problem previous mentioned) in order to find the ones that are perfect (i.e. do not have Huntington's disease.) This "solution" is eerily similar to eugenics, in which weaker/sicker humans are murdered to "improve" the human race.  Accurate terminology is essential when having these serious ethical discussions, so there is clarity and honesty about what is being proposed. 

Isaacson goes on to state that "In making a gene edit to eliminate Huntington's, nothing is changed except the bad mutation. You won't change the gene for eye color, for example." He goes on to question where a gene edit like this should be allowed because it is so targeted. Yet in an earlier chapter  about the events surrounding He Jiankui's attempt to edit the CCR5 protein responsible in HIV in twin embryos, Isaacson mentions that Jiankui's paper revealed that in the twin named Lulu, "only one of the two relevant chromosomes had been properly modified" and that "....there was evidence that some unwanted edits had been made in the embryos." It would seem that in undertaking gene-editing, much is unknown, and that CRISPR-Cas9 may cause unwanted edits or additions that are unknown. There is also the ethics of doing what is largely experimentation on human beings who are not able to give their consent.To this date, not much is known about the twins Lulu and Nana, their health or what exactly those edits are.

In the chapter, Regulating Gene Editing, the author works through a number of interesting scenarios, posing questions and leaving the reader to consider these situations, as well as suggesting when gene-editing might be permissible. The following chapter also explores Doudna's own personal journey as she struggles to determine under what conditions gene-editing should be allowed. 

In the Epilogue, the authors include black and white photographs of some of the important scientists in this story, a visual of how CRISPR works. There is a detailed Glossary of terms as well as a large Notes section for sources from each chapter.

The Code Breaker is definitely a book for older readers, mainly because of the complex science described in the book and the ethical questions that need to be considered and answered before scientists move forward with CRISPR. It is adapted from the nonfiction book of the same title, written for adult readers. In The Code Breaker, Isaacson and Durand have crafted an engaging account of cutting-edge molecular biology research that has the potential to impact the future of humanity. It is told from a very personal perspective - that of Jennifer Doudna, a remarkable and brilliant woman scientist. It also demonstrates that a career in science not only possible for women, but personally fulfilling with the possibility now of actually having one's accomplishments recognized.

Book Details:

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna and the Race to Understand Our Genetic Code by Walter Isaacson with Sarah Durand
New York: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers      2021

320 pp.

Agent Most Wanted: the Never-Before-Told Story of the Most Dangerous Spy of World War II by Sonia Purnell

Virginia Hall was born in 1906 to Barbara and Edwin Lee (Ned) Hall, a Baltimore banker who also owned a movie theater. Virginia, known as "Dindy" to her family, was a free spirit who went against the conventions of the 1920s, wearing pants in place of skirts. She loved hunting and riding horses bareback. Virginia was viewed as a natural leader by her classmates.

While her mother wanted Virginia to marry into Baltimore society, her father allowed her the freedom she craved. Despite this, Virginia did become engaged at the age of nineteen but she eventually broke off the engagement and enrolled at Radcliffe College in 1924. Finding this school boring, she switched to Barnard College in Manhattan. 

Virginia was determined to have a career as a diplomat so she convinced her parents to send her oversees to the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques. Paris was exciting for Virginia with its actresses, intellectuals and politicians. 

It was while studying languages, economics and journalism in Vienna, that Virginia met and fell in love with Emil, a young Polish army officer. Because her family objected to this relationship, Virginia broke up with him.

Living in Europe resulted in Virginia learning a number of foreign languages, and becoming informed on European culture and politics. She developed a deep love for France, her "second country" and became concerned over the rise of fascism in Europe. In 1929, she returned to the United States, to study French and economics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She attempted to become a diplomat but her application was rejected. 

After the death of her father in 1931, Virginia obtained a position at the US embassy in Poland, processing mail, diplomatic visas, and coding and decoding telegrams. In 1933, Virginia transferred to Smyrna, Turkey and it was there that she suffered a life-changing injury, shooting herself accidently in her left foot. When gangrene set in, surgeons were forced to amputate her left leg below the knee to save her life. Virginia returned home in June, 1934 endured several more operations and was given a new wooden prosthetic leg she named "Cuthbert". This period of her life at her family's home, Box Horn Farm was difficult as Virginia had to learn how to walk. 

She was able to obtain a new post at the US consulate in Venice, Italy, where she continued to impress her superiors with her abilities. At age thirty, Virginia's second attempt to obtain a diplomat position was rejected on the grounds of her being an amputee. Instead, she was given a posting in Tallinn, Estonia where she arrived after getting the needed repairs to her prosthetic leg in Paris.

In March, 1939,with war on the horizon, she resigned and left for London, September. After being rejected as a volunteer for the Auxiliary Territorial Service, Virginia went to Paris and signed up as an ambulance driver for the French Ninth Artillery Regiment. When France was invaded by the Nazis, Virginia was determined to help. But she knew she needed to get back to London.

In Spain, en route to London, a chance meeting with George Bellows, a British secret agent was to be Virginia's way into the British SOE as a liaison officer. She was known as Agent 3844 and was sent into Vichy France. She would be tasked with reporting on the situation in France and helping other agents as they arrived. But Virginia would accomplish so much more than that - helping the Allies years later in 

Discussion

Agent Most Wanted is the story of Virginia Hall, a woman who overcame the barriers of gender and disability to become the first Allied woman secret agent in France, significantly helping the French Resistance during World War II. 

Author Sonia Purnell undertook extensive research, interviewing Virginia Hall's niece, Lorna Catling and traveling to France, to speak with the people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and many others including the son of  Georges Duboudin who was known as agent "Alain".

Virginia Hall was a most extraordinary woman, a heroine of the war and one of the most effective Allied agents. Purnell explores Virginia's early life, her personality and the factors that formed her into the courageous leader she became.  Nicknamed "Dindy" by her family, Virginia strongly resisted what was considered an "acceptable" life for a young woman in the 1930's. She broke an engagement, got herself well educated and was determined to have a career as a diplomat. Her father allowing her the freedom to be herself led to Virginia forging her own path. Eventually, as an Allied secret agent, she would make significant contributions during the war.

She recruited people to support the resistance to the Nazis in France, recruiting people to help fight the Nazis and defend their country. She recruited people who provided safe houses for agents hiding from the Nazis, obtaining weapons, medicine and supplies for the French Resistance. She also educated incoming British agents helping them to blend into the French culture so they wouldn't be caught by the Gestapo. 

Virginia infiltrated the Surete, the Vichy government's counter-espionage force and she orchestrated prison escapes of SOE agents, most notably  the spectacular escape of twelve SOE agents called Clan Cameron from the Mauzac prison camp. 

Despite her remarkable abilities and her outstanding record, Virginia struggled at first to be taken seriously by the SOE in London. Many times male agents were taken at their word, over her more experienced opinions. The SOE refused to put Virginia in charge, even though she was the most competent agent in France. Without military rank, her competence could be questioned and her advice ignored. 

Purnell relates all of this plus explores the personal cost to Virginia, both the physical suffering she had to endure at times to get to safety and the loneliness she experienced. She also suffered from the betrayal of her network in Lyon by Robert Alesch, a Roman Catholic priest and Nazi collaborator and agent for the Abwehr. Virginia Hall proved that women could be excellent agents and paved the way for many other female agents, many of whom lost their lives.

Purnell tells Virginia's story in short chapters, with black and white photographs of many significant people involved in Virginia's work in France and important people in her life in the post-war period. The author also provides Notes giving sources for the information in each chapter, a Bibliography and an Index. 

Agent Most Wanted is an engaging story about one of the most significant but probably under-acknowledged heroes of the Second World War. Well-written and well worth the read.

Book Details:

Agent Most Wanted: The Never Before Told Story of the Most Dangerous Spy of World War II by Sonia Purnell
New York: Viking    2022
200 pp.