The Passenger Seat

January 15, 2025
Two high school friends fall into a rite of poisonous passage toward toxic masculinity in this debut novel. Adam and Teddy have a complicated relationship, both complementary and competitive. Adam is the leader, yet also a loner, with Teddy his only follower. Adam lives in a world of video games and internet conspiracies; he's likely an incel, though that's not a term the novel uses. The narrative refers to them as "boys-or-men," but it's unclear whether this is how they think of themselves. Psychological perspective is tricky throughout the narrative, because the novel spends plenty of time inside one or the other of their heads, switching back and forth, while some of the insights might seem to transcend the maturity of either. Neither comes from a happy home, and there is no evidence in the novel that any man and woman can have an enduring, enriching relationship. Teddy has other friends, even a girlfriend, but he somehow needs Adam--needs his nerve, his impulsiveness, but perhaps mostly needs him because Adam has a driver's license and Teddy does not. Adam persuades Teddy to hit the road and leave their homes forever. Teddy convinces Adam that they should buy a rifle, which, sure as Chekhov, will prove pivotal. (It's Teddy who has this license.) The titular passenger seat is Teddy's, though they will eventually switch off. As Adam asks himself, "What would either of them be without the other to define him?" Even with each other, just who are they and where are they going? Their pilgrimage seems to carry the weight of modern masculinity on its shoulders, without any lightening of warmth or humor. A coda focusing on two other friends, middle-aged and purposeless, suggests that the going doesn't get any easier once boys become men. A novel for those who like their grimness unadulterated by any glimmer of redemption.

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February 25, 2025
Beginning mid-jump and barely letting up the tension, Vijay Khurana’s debut novel, The Passenger Seat, is an unusual and deftly written literary thriller. It follows the uneasy friendship between two ‘boys-or-men’ who set out on a haphazardly planned road trip before their last year of school. The omniscient – almost documentary-like – narration shifts primarily between the perspectives of Adam and Teddy. Adam, thorny and hot-tempered, drives. Teddy, only slightly better adjusted but more submissive, rides in the passenger seat when he’s not impatiently taking driving lessons from Adam. With Teddy’s gun license, they buy a rifle, and the devastating consequences of this are no less shocking for being expected. Khurana’s prose enthrals, marked by a sharp social and sensory realism and a mature emotional intelligence. His ability to capture how physiological reactions often precede cognitive understanding is impressive, as is his unflinching portrayal of how young men interpret these reactions – often through a toxic lens. As Adam becomes increasingly hostile to those in his orbit, his story highlights how young men can drift into radicalisation through emotional detachment. Just as unsettling is the way Teddy absorbs and mirrors Adam’s domineering personality, pulling them both toward an inevitable breaking point. In Khurana’s hands, it’s a haunting exploration of modern masculinity. Reading this, I was reminded of Emma Cline’s The Guest for its bleak but subtly probing outlook, as well as Benjamin Myers’s short story collection Male Tears for its thematic parallels.