Overland

LoveReading Says

Following three young travellers who board a beaten-up Land Rover (Vera) to follow the hippy trail from London to Kathmandu in 1970, Yasmin Cordery Khan’s Overland weaves an utterly compelling, fresh-perspective story of old money privilege, the confidence and optimism of youth, and British imperial arrogance. 

For context, as Khan shares in her Author’s Note, it’s estimated that from the 1950s to the late 70s, over one million people “made the journey from London to India by bus, van, or simply by hitch-hiking”, with the trail coming to an end with the Iranian Revolution that begin in 1978, and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

In this case, Overland’s narrator, pragmatic working-class Joyce, takes to the trail after seeing a newspaper ad to join two male travellers on the road just when she’s reached a “crucial junction point” in her life i.e. she feels trapped in suburbia, and has just left her husband. Determined to return from the trip a “better improved, more independent version” of herself, Joyce is quick to fall under the spell of her companions, especially charismatic, drug-loving, old money musician Freddie, the son of an earl, with earnest academic Anton serving as a more stable foil to Freddie’s erraticism.

Along the way, while the trio are largely consumed by feeling that “we would always be completely alive”, horrific historic events connect the trip with Freddie’s family in a way that also impacts their futures. At the same time, the broader novel is framed in the context of it being Joyce’s vehicle to share secrets held for some fifty years. Indeed, early on Joyce cautions, “There are hard, dirty secrets of the heart in these pages, and some honest truths. I’ll warn you I haven’t spared your blushes”. 

Thanks to its richly-detailed evocation of locations and histories along the road trip, fine characterisation, and clear-sighted exploration of privilege, imperialism and coming of age complexities, Overland can’t come more highly recommended. It’s also beautifully-written, moving, and feels 100% authentic, from Joyce’s no-nonsense narration, through to its depiction of upper-class dysfunctionalities.

Joanne Owen

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