The Bus Stories: A review

Who would guess that the passage to enlightenment would come at the cost of a PTSC bus ticket?

That’s one of the stand out ideas of The Bus Stories by Lynette Tyson Noel, whose observations and interactions with her fellow travellers are chronicled in sometimes hysterical, always insightful chapters in the 68-page book.

For most people, the voyage home is hurried as we seek relief from the vagaries of daily life in the comfort of the familiar. The goal then, is to get home, and let nothing get in our way. For Noel, the series of trips home, via the most crowded of public transportation options, offers intimate, though often unsolicited, moments of shared experiences with her fellow travellers. It shows that if one opened one’s eyes and really looked at the people and surroundings, maybe attempted a polite hello, one can be fortunate enough to take home a story that can delight and inspire others.

The Bus Stories is a journey both literally and thematically. The book, starting from the first chapter, Uncertain travels, about the experience of a bus failing its passengers mid-journey, and ending with The Best Man is an Honest Man, a commentary on youth in TT, is well structured an organised. Each story is presented as its own independent prose, only linked through the author and the mode of transportation. Yet as independent as each chapter may be, they all represent an immersion in a sub-culture of Trinidad, visible only to the people familiar with the bus transport system.

Travelling via bus is something many people do everyday and the long lines of weary, waiting travellers at the PTSC stops almost seem like an additional form of torture for those desperate for relief from their long days. Yet, Noel finds ways to look beyond the obvious and uses her characters – the homeless man at the bus terminus, the chatterbox seat mate, the driver who turned back to make sure everyone reached their destination – to weave together the intrinsic human qualities that bind people together. The tiredness, the need for personal space, the shared look between strangers when another stranger does something considered ridiculous, the familiarity that grows from repetition. Noel shares these stories, with a writing style that lends to the intimacy of sharing a story with friends, starting with a detailed account of the experiences of each chapter and ending with a discerning thought or comment about each situation and its impact on her own world view.

After reading The Bus Stories I felt compelled to leave my car at home, go take a bus ride and do some people watching and cultural appreciation on my own. The book was a wonderful reminder that there are stories everywhere and with everyone and one only needs to stop, watch, and listen.

The Bus Stories is Noel’s second book, following The Night Nopat was Left Out, a work of fiction published in 2011 and was published by Pendium Publishing House. It is available for purchase at Amazon.com on Kindle and in paperback format and by sending a message to The Bus Stories by Lynette Tyson Noel on Facebook.