On the surface, Over This Backbone is about a young 19-year-old girl walking 600 km across the Australian Alps Walking Track. A difficult track that winds from Canberra to the middle of Victoria across the Great Divide.
The novel starts at the end. A prologue where Peta has completed the walk. Peta describes herself as ‘eviscerated’ and that everything has gone wrong, ‘the whole thing is butchered’. What has happened, and why did she start this journey in the first place?
We find that Peta started the trek to help her forget and move on from a toxic relationship. The walk was supposed to help her heal; at one stage Peta comments about competing with the self that she used to be.
This is the true heart of the novel. It is about Peta and her feelings. On the outside, Peta seems strong and confident, but this is a facade she works hard to maintain. She is very critical of herself, and has thoughts full of failure and at times, self-loathing. She feels directionless and that she is wasting her life.
These thoughts are strengthened by Peta’s boyfriend, Ben, who has many problems of his own. Self-centred, he treats Peta terribly throughout the whole novel.
The distance covered in her walk is used to structure the chapters. The narrative alternates between Peta’s journey in the present and her turbulent relationship with Ben in the past.
At times it feels as if Reeves is using the walk as a metaphor for Peta’s life and relationship with Ben. The physical difficulties mirroring the mental.
Reeves is an outdoor and environmental educator working in the same conditions and geography as her protagonist. She writes well, capturing the arid landscape, fauna, and flora descriptively. A most enjoyable and impressive debut.
Reviewed by Neale Lucas
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