Overland

London, 1970
Joyce, fresh out of secretarial college, answers an ad in the local paper for a fellow traveller needed to fill a car going on the hippy trail. Arriving at Freddie's Notting Hill townhouse, Joyce already feels a world away from the suburban semi she grew up in. She's desperate to escape the stifling life she can see mapped out for her – job, boyfriend, marriage, kids – and the long-haired, dope-smoking Freddie looks like he can show her an alternative path.

Together with Freddie's best friend from boarding school, Anton, the three agree to travel overland from London to Kathmandu. But their initial excitement soon turns to fear when Freddie's experimentations push his friendship with Anton to the extreme, with devastating consequences for everyone.

The Overland is a novel about youth, privilege, class and the sharp echoes of British imperialism from one of the most exciting new voices in literary fiction.

'Overland is a brilliant domestic tragedy played out along the dangerous thrills of the grand trunk road, and a biting critique of the orientalist, gender and class attitudes that shape Britain today. I loved it.' -- Preti Taneja
The road-trip novel to end all road-trip novels... so wise about the beautiful dream that is youth and so honest about what happens when the dream ends. -- Junot Díaz
An intelligent holiday read... will fill you with gratitude for your creature comforts as well as a regret that the journey it documents so vividly is now impossible. -- Daisy Goodwin
Witty, thought-provoking and compulsively readable. Joyce is one of the best unreliable narrators I’ve encountered... will stay with me for a long time. -- Elodie Harper
A vivid, haunting portrayal of 1970s counterculture, and what can happen when the dark underbelly of wanderlust meets youthful exuberance. -- Clare Whitfield
A modern odyssey, alive with adventure and the relentless quest for belonging. -- Defne Suman
Taut and urgent... an absorbing story, told without sentimentality. -- Andrew Whitehead
As the characters set off on their adventure, they unsettle the dregs of Empire, as the embers of old family secrets are ignited... atmospheric and intriguing. -- Elizabeth Chakrabarty
A mesmerizing road-trip story that sweeps through a lost 1960s world of open borders to India... and the elusive hope of a new truth at the end of the path. -- Elleke Boehmer

Yasmin Cordery Khan is an historian and broadcaster. She is the author of the novel Edgware Road as well as two works of non fiction: The Great Partition (for which she won the Gladstone Prize for History) and The Rah at War. She has written for the Guardian and the Observer.

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