The Passenger Seat

‘[an] unsettling and powerful debut’ – New York Times

Approaching the wrong person with open hands can be fatal.
 
Seeking escape from their small-town existence, two teenagers impulsively drive north, with no particular place to go and no particular sense of who is at the wheel.
 
Adam and Teddy hope to leave boyhood behind, but as the journey progresses their friendship becomes a struggle to prove themselves. When Adam harasses a young couple they meet on the highway it lands them in trouble they cannot run from.
 
In taut and stylish prose, The Passenger Seat examines how men learn and perform masculinity. Rejecting easy answers, it keeps our eyes trained on the vanishing point where vulnerability edges into violence, alienation into aggression.


PRAISE FOR THE PASSENGER SEAT
‘a truly marvellous novel, one that rewards being read multiple times’ – Sydney Morning Herald

‘Khurana’s prose enthrals, marked by a sharp social and sensory realism and a mature emotional intelligence’ – Books+Publishing

‘Khurana unfurls a gripping drama, a game of cat and mouse in Deliverance style primordial forests and dirt backroads where fragments of civilisation, and other humans, are glimpsed through the trees’ – The Australian

‘a tense and gripping power struggle of toxic masculinity, as the teenagers push each other further and further down a violent road of no return’ – Guardian

‘To read this novel feels like a constant acceleration, like putting your foot on the pedal and realising you do not know how to take it off. Your only choice is to speed into an inevitable crash.’ – Readings Monthly

‘What begins as a rite of passage turns into surreal violence. Khurana’s prose flows with hypnotic force, concealing laconic undercurrents of menace and intrigue … Cinematic and subtle, fuelling both a slow burn and a slow turn, this is a deeply riveting and satisfying novel.’ – Brian Castro, author of Chinese Postman

‘As honest as it is harrowing, The Passenger Seat examines the psychology of two people in the process of making decisive mistakes, and never looks away. An exploration of how one thing leading to another soon gathers weight.’ – Max Easton, author of Paradise Estate

‘This book is simply great – an elegant novel written with disturbing emotional intensity and a sly, judicious sense of contemporary detail.’ – Lauren Oyler, author of Fake Accounts

‘a road novel odyssey into the dark heart of a contemporary crisis too long unexamined’ – Luke Carman, author of An Elegant Young Man

‘Vijay Khurana’s profound and propulsive The Passenger Seat is a thrilling, terrifying, devastating ride. This perfectly pitched tale of masculinity gone wrong exposes the ways that intimacy can so quickly veer into violence – yet it evades easy moral pronouncements at every turn. Khurana is a brilliant stylist who drives straight toward the heart. I would follow him down any road.’ Elvia Wilk, author of Death by Landscape
Vijay Khurana writes incredibly succinct and vigorous prose. His stories, always full of insight and depth, shine a light on the most nuanced and ambivalent corners of our lives. Yan Ge, author of Elsewhere
A novel for those who like their grimness unadulterated by any glimmer of redemption. Kirkus Reviews

Vijay Khurana is a writer and translator from German. The Passenger Seat, his debut novel, was shortlisted for the 2022 Fitzcarraldo Editions/New Directions/Giramondo Novel Prize, while his short fiction has been recognised by numerous prizes and published in The Guardian, The Griffith Review, and NOON, among others. He has also been a presenter on Australian radio station triple j, and in 2014 he published a children’s chapter book, Regal Beagle. 

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