This memoir was all over the place. I went into it expecting it to be solely about the author's status and acceptance of being a Bisexual man but it was more about how his religion affected how he viewed himself. This had the potential to be more hard hitting and touching but it wasn't there and the three elements: religion, sexuality, and nature, all fell flat and did not feel important. This just needed some tweaking to realign this into a better structure as the narrative was not there.

Set against the backdrop of Epping Forest, Out of the Woods is a story about faith, sexuality and their impact on Luke Turner’s life. Turner grew up in a Methodist family, his father was a preacher, which made coming to terms with his bisexuality complicated because the pressure to conform to heteronormative ideals were more pronounced. Out of the Woods* is full of nuance about learning to be yourself, when so much of what that entails seem at odds with each other.

I'm a regular reader of the Quietus and love Luke's writing so I was looking forward to this one. This is a beautifully written exploration of sex, religion and the healing power of nature.

Out of the Woods is author Luke Turner's account of coming to terms with his bisexuality from his school days exploring his sexuality and masculinity right through to adult life. It's a book I have very mixed feelings about both in retrospect and as I read it. Epping Forest is a huge character in the book as Luke explores his sexuality and changing relationship with the forest both in terms of safety and danger, illicit encounters and the desire for healing. He recounts both the history of the forest and his family history both of which are intertwined.

I found it curious that while he was brought up in a religious household, his father being a Methodist Minister and memories of his mother singing to him, he doesn't take the route of rejecting God, finding himself unwilling to give up on God, rather rejecting a judgemental God in favour of a spirituality I felt was channelled through the forest and his changing relationship with it. Turner has a clear and deep love for his parents who seem to display the kind of embracing love for their son that meant he could retain a close relationship with them.

Turner does however seem to edge into a virtually pantheistic mindset of deifying the forest at times. He describes religion as all about interpretation and filtered through human minds yet he himself filters and interprets in his search for healing and being at peace with who he is. At one point he says nature knows no morality, no right or wrong and yet for me this sits ill at ease with his hope that healing can come from the forest as he never answers how or why healing would come from a place of such apparent moral blindness. Indeed he continually makes moral judgements himself but doesn't seem to see this as contradictory. It could be that I'm reading it wrongly (or explaining it inadequately) but that's the sense I had. To be honest I found the book filled with contradictions but this is probably to be expected as an inherent part of the journey Turner is on and is in some ways integral to any searching process.

There is no doubt that much of the writing is beautifully descriptive and this delighted me at first and I found myself highlighting many sections. Yet at times later on I found the story in danger of becoming submerged under the weight of its own descriptiveness. At times it seemed to be trying a bit too hard to be too descriptive when a simpler narrative would have sufficed. I have to be honest and say that I nearly gave up reading a few times from about three quarters of the way through because it felt as if the constant efforts at descriptive prose were becoming tiresome and I felt myself plodding through it rather than reading by immersion in the story. I also found that in some of the middle sections the story seemed to be going round in circles becoming somewhat repetitive. I think this is also part of the journey as this is what happens when you are 'searching' yet in a book narrative it can be wearing. But I persevered and was glad I did as I feel it's a story which once you have started it you do want to see it through to the end.

The book is explicit in parts which I think is down to the author's brave and I think necessary desire to be as painfully honest as he can be or needs to be and parts are painful to read. His bravery in such honest writing means we can follow him at more than a 'surface' level on his journey of pain and pleasure and frequently a mixture of the two in uncomfortable union.

The man who lives in the woods is an interesting character in his own right and although he pops up throughout the book I confess I struggled to understand his purpose in the story beyond the fact he lived in the woods! I also found myself wanting to hear from Turner's parents and girlfriend Mia and think their perspective would have added much to the story but this is Turner's story so it has to be told in his way.

Out of the Woods may well become a contemporary classic in its genre although for me while it was worth reading it is sometimes too needlessly descriptive and contradictory to be a classic. While I followed Turner's thought processes I found myself both agreeing and disagreeing with his logic but it's important to remember that this is Turner's own story and in that context it provides a valuable insight into the search for self and peace for this bisexual man. I think it would also provide much food for thought for a book group.

Thanks to NetGalley and Orion Published for review copy.

Luke Turner's Out of the Woods uses Epping Forest as a backcloth for the exploration of his own confusing psyche: quoting St Augustine, he reflects that the inner world is 'a limitless forest, full of unexpected dangers.' As a bisexual man, Turner has often felt caught between two worlds, and as this memoir proceeds, we discover that the pull he feels towards spontaneous and risky sexual encounters can, he believes, be traced back to early abusive experiences with older men as a teenager. The forest itself feels like neither one thing or another; not a truly wild place, as it is so close to the suburbs of London (and Turner describes some of the decaying, yet expensive houses of these suburbs in vivid detail), and yet a place that has long been visited by the city's inhabitants for behaviour that has been viewed as outside social bounds. Turner reflects on the men convicted for public indecency in the forest, and how it is still used as a male cruising ground; he finds out that his own ancestors had a child out of wedlock, and speculates that it was conceived in Epping.

This is one of those memoirs when I feel I have to distinguish carefully between the voice and the person. I have every sympathy for Turner's struggle with his sexuality, and for what he suffered in his early years. As he rightly points out, bisexual men are still marginalised in a way that gay men are not: many people still persist in believing that they don't exist or in stereotyping them as kinky, polygamous hedonists who can never be appropriate long-term partners - especially in heterosexual relationships.

And yet, despite the fact that Turner highlights these important issues, I did not feel that Out of the Woods succeeded as a memoir. I'm afraid I found it self-indulgent, and the writing often awkward and overwrought. Turner is front and centre all the time, and he fails to weave his personal experiences satisfactorily into a wider narrative about woodlands, sexuality, and state policing. I also found the lack of explicit recognition of male privilege a little frustrating; as I've said above, bisexual men face particular and serious prejudice, but at certain points in this memoir, Turner makes it sound as if they are the most radical, binary-breaking, properly oppressed group in history, which isn't a label I think should be applied to any social group. And while Turner picks up on some interesting facts about woodland, such as the ability of trees to communicate with each other through networks of moss (see Suzanne Simard's 2016 TED talk for more), there are much better books out there on the woods, notably Sara Maitland's Gossip From The Forest. So for me, a really groundbreaking book about bi men has yet to materialise.

I will post this full version of this review online nearer the publication date. A shorter version is now on Goodreads.

Out of the Woods is a memoir that spans generations, history and present of Epping Forest, and 3 decades of confusion, guilt and looking for answers to find peace, acceptance and love. Luke Turner grew up in a Methodist family as the son of a preacher. The conflict in his life started early on as Luke questions and hides his true self, his bisexuality and struggles with understanding the masculinity of teenage boys that surround him.

As Luke struggles through relationships, the sexual compulsion makes everything around him and within him crumble. In the midst of trying to find something- anything– that would make sense in the ongoing ripple in his life, Luke searches his soul, explores the nightlife, digs deep into the history of his family and how everything is tied to Epping Forest.

Whilst his coming of age brought along excitement with his sexuality, it also brought sexual abuse and danger. It takes time before he accepts that, indeed, he has been sexually abused and that what has happened to him- even though, it gave him a rush of adrenaline at a certain moment, was not right. Not right at all.

This book is so utterly atmospheric and beautifully written. The voice of Luke Turner is one that made me travel distances and ages and settings as I was with him on his journey, both physically and mentally through thick and thin and sadness and small joys and victories.

Intense focus in parallel with Luke’s life is set upon Epping Forest- with everything that Luke says about the forest- what it looks like, what it feels like, how it has evolved and the secrets and crime it hides, made me feel like I have seen the forest, visited it myself and felt it’s mystical power over humanity.

Luke writes this memoir without holding a single part of who he is and what he has experienced back. His approach to telling his tale is evocative and honest and raw. I found Luke to be entirely appreciative of his family, the Epping Forest and his passion to unearth the history around both to find that something that ties family and forest together. He wants to know why and how and explain everything… But it’s never really that simple.

The writing truly demonstrates the depth of intricate detail and the power of observation with which Luke brings us his story.

As far as memoirs go, this one hits hard… I kept imagining that Luke could be anyone I meet on the streets passing by, someone who deals with a turmoil within them. A turmoil that makes their feet walk in certain directions to bring about change in their life for better or worse. By the end of this book, you will know Luke. You will know about his childhood, his family, his first sexual experiences that have shaped his life. You will know the compulsion that acts as a catalyst and eventually you will see him break the chains. It’s like witnessing a caterpillar – cocooned into (sometimes false) safety by any means possible- evolve into a butterfly. Into clarity and future.

To finish off this review, I would like to send a thank you to Luke- a thank you out into the Universe as he might not ever see this review. Thank you for sharing you story without hiding even the tiniest sliver of yourself behind false pretenses. For being honest. For being brave. My heart beat along with this memoir and maybe, somewhere, some time, someone else will read this book. Someone who can relate on so many levels and perhaps find solace and peace and hope.