London Overground by Iain Sinclair review – a triumphant odyssey

Sinclair’s latest circular hike takes in the sprawling signs and wonders and humanity of the London ‘ginger’ line

Iain Sinclair has been walking in circles for most of his writing life. This latest orbit of London follows its newest branded railway line, the “ginger” overground route that connects some of the capital’s singular urban villages – Camden Town, Shepherd’s Bush, Peckham Rye, Hoxton and the rest – through Docklands and the east of the city. He walks his odyssey, 35 miles, in a day, though there is a lifetime of observation in each purposeful stride.

This wasn’t, as ever, quite the book the city’s great itinerant seer planned. Sinclair was on the first leg of a journey retracing Chaucer’s pilgrim route to Canterbury when he met chance along the way. It came in the form of a man with a goat head – a hipster in satyric fancy dress, who was attended by several other bacchanalian figures, including a friend with an owl mask and a girl in only a funeral coat. Sinclair bought them a pint and heard their story. They were “ginger liners”, linked by proximity to the overground and, alerted by tweets and texts, they met on designated evenings at random stations of their choosing – Imperial Wharf, Kensal Rise, Haggerston – “for [laughing gas] balloon parties, gossip, the taking of selfies” and always in exotic dress.

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