Richard Ward

Over and Under Richard Ward

The year is 1972. The Vietnam War, the Black Power movement, domestic politics, and general cultural rebellion dominate the times. A couple of earnest young men meet by chance in Berkeley and decide to travel together to the East Coast, each on a kind of quest, one writing a book on fathers and sons, the other embarked on the eternal youthful search for meaning and identity in a tumultuous world.

While an extended meditation on these issues, Over and Under is, above all, a youthful adventure as we follow the protagonists cross country in a dilapidated old car from one episode to the next, willingly submitting themselves to the vagaries of circumstance.

Encompassing everything is the land itself, enormous, beautiful, and varied, serving as counterpoint and anchor to the chaos and disillusion felt by the characters. Big Sur, the Grand Canyon, New Mexico, the bayou country of Louisiana, and the southeast (Atlantic) coast, specifically the Gullah islands, are some of the places that figure prominently in the journey.