Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom by Sylvia Plath: Book #22 for 2019
I bought this short novel after I read that it had been postumously published. Sylvia Plath wrote it in 1952, only to have it rejected by publishers, and it is very sad that she committed suicide before it got the recognition it deserved.
Apparently, Sylvia Plath did write another version that was made to feel deliberately incomplete, but the publishers of this book have presented it in its original form, as they felt that this was the best version.
At the start of the book, Mary is setting off on a train journey; I wasn't sure of her exact age, but the narrative implied that she is quite young; her destination appears to be this mysterious "ninth kingdom". On the train, she befriends another woman who takes her to the dining carriage where they get talking.
As the novel progresses, the train carriage starts to feel a bit dark and surreal, with passengers who are apparently identical, but the really creepy stuff starts when another woman is forcibly removed from the train for not wanting to get off at her stop. At this point, the other woman starts making comments about people apparently having to get off when it's their stop, and also about how on this journey "there is no return".
I won't spoil things by saying how it ends, but needless to say I couldn't predict what was going to happen. It felt a bit open to interpretation, and reviews I have read seem to suggest that the train journey represents Sylvia Plath's own mindstate when she wrote it. The writing style is very good; it felt a bit similar to Daphne DuMaurier, but it felt like something that I would have to go back and read again.