"Strange Labyrinth...is interwoven with other elements in an account that soon shifts from documentation - a cultural guidebook... - to a delirious fiction of doctored memory and free association... [A] timely survey [that] honours some of those [characters of Epping Forest]." —Book of the Week, Guardian
"An anarchic hymn to the scruffy edgeland of Epping Forest, the ancient wood that sits on the boundary between London and Essex... Fascinating... [A] glorious book you'll enjoy getting lost in." —Observer
"[A] twisting... deeply satisfying exploration of the intellectual terrain covered by artists, writers and performers who share a connection to this place... with remarkable scope, unconstrained by boundaries of genre or style...This is at heart a book about anxiety and fear, and our prospects of breaking through the enclosure our fears impose upon us." —Spectator
"Ashon [writes] with verve and a winning candour about his own fearful nature, as he makes his meandering way between the trees." —New Statesman
"Ashon's acclaimed book ranges far and wide, from poets to punks, from the sculptor Jacob Epstein to the highwayman Dick Turpin... Roaming from memoir to nature writing, cultural history and psychogeography" —Best Summer Books, Financial Times
In litter-strewn Epping Forest on the edge of London, might a writer find that magical moment of transcendence? He will certainly discover filthy graffiti and frightening dogs, as well as world-renowned artists and fading celebrities, robbers, lovers, ghosts and poets. But will he find himself? Or a version of himself he might learn something from? Strange Labyrinth is a quest narrative arguing that we shouldn't get lost in order to find ourselves, but solely to accept that we are lost in the first place. It is a singular blend of landscape writing, political indignation, cultural history and wit from a startling new voice in non-fiction.
