Simultaneously a breathtaking account of a physical journey and a memoir about recovering from mental illness.
Guy Stagg was born in 1988 and grew up in Paris, Heidelberg, Yorkshire and London.
Golden prose illuminates this moving account of a pilgrimage taken
for the good of the author’s mental health . . . compelling . . .
moving and thought-provoking
*Observer*
Having finished this account, I felt dazed. Dazed at the thought of
all that I’d learnt from its pages about 2,000 years of
Christianity, dazed at how immediate its author had made so many
centuries-old stories feel, and dazed at the strangeness and
brilliance of this extraordinary travelogue.
*i newspaper*
The extraordinary story of a pilgrimage to find out the meaning of
pilgrimage. Completely absorbing, personal, often funny, and full
of fascinating encounters - an enlightening book from an exciting
new writer.
*Sarah Bakewell, author of At The Existentialist Café*
The journey is remarkable – a hike of thousands of miles across
Europe, undertaken with rare bravery and stamina. But what is
really extraordinary about Guy Stagg’s The Crossway is the writing
– acutely sensitive, hyper-alert and unflagging in its exploration
of the strange depths and by-ways of human belief
*Philip Marsden, author of Rising Ground*
Completely absorbing, personal, often funny, and full of
fascinating encounters – an enlightening book from an exciting new
writer.
*Sarah Bakewell, author of At The Existentialist Café*
The journey as redemptive recovery is a well-worm trope, but there
is no glib ending here. I really enjoyed this book
*Spectator*
I loved it. Odd that a journey made to find salvation (a kind of
5,500 kilometre Stations of the Cross taking almost a year to walk)
should turn out to be such a page turner. The reason is Stagg
himself – an engaging, challenging, endlessly interesting companion
who just happens to write formidably well. Travel writing has a
bright new star.
*Alexander Frater, author of Chasing the Monsoon*
Guy Stagg makes a pilgrimage across Europe, into history and, most
powerfully, the (troubled) interior of his soul. He takes us on a
journey full of wonder and woe, poetry and pain; writing in prose
that’s as sure-footed as it is unsettling in its honesty. A brave
and beautiful account of a man’s search for meaning
*Rhidian Brook, author of The Aftermath*
A formidable achievement . . . This secular pilgrimage is a
lively.
*Country Life*
A sublime, intense, and intimate account of a journey . . .
Beautifully written, filled with strange encounters and
extraordinary language
*Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan*
A gorgeous and moving book
*Jamie Quatro, author of Fire Sermon*
A marvellous book. There’s a lovely plainsongish immediacy to the
telling that I found hugely beguiling, and (unusually) Stagg is as
effective on people as he is on place. It’s also a generous piece
of self-reckoning
*William Atkins, author of The Moor*
‘Such pitch-perfect prose that he has already attracted comparisons
with Patrick Leigh Fermor’s celebrated accounts of his youthful
travels’
*The Tablet*
‘A gripping pilgrimage through faith and doubt . . . A first-rate
writer, and a tough-minded one . . . he writes with a sort of
rapturous exactitude about the peoples, climates and landscapes he
meets’
*TheArtsDesk.com*
Guy Stagg has bared his soul and soles in this epic account of
walking from England through Italy, the Balkans, Istanbul, Cyprus,
Lebanon and on to Jerusalem. His fabulously open hearted account
easily bears comparison with the great walking and monastery books
of Patrick Leigh Fermor, except he goes further in revealing the
damage, and how it might be repaired . . . solvitur ambulando
indeed!
*Robert Twigger, author of Red Nile and Angry White
Pyjamas*
‘Stagg takes us on a journey full of wonder and woe, poetry and
pain; writing in prose that’s as sure-footed as it is unsettling in
its honesty. A brave and beautiful account of a man’s search for
meaning.’
*Rhidian Brook, author of The Aftermath*
The Crossway is moving and unique, with the sense that no one else
can write like this about such places as the abbeys of France, the
cities of Rome and Istanbul or the daunting landscape of pilgrimage
and the often astonishing people whom Guy Stagg meets. At the
book’s heart is his own story; troubled, he seeks redemption and
hope. Does he find them? He makes his search into a story that is
gripping and uplifting
*Max Egremont, author of Forgotten Land: Journeys Among the
Ghosts of East Prussia*
After suffering years of severe mental illness, Stagg embarks on a
journey from Canterbury to Jerusalem, hoping that the 5,500km walk
along medieval pilgrim paths will heal him. Travelling alone, and
relying on shelter provided by churches, monasteries and nunneries
en route, he faces down many demons along the way, getting caught
up in violent snowstorms, the demonstrations in Istanbul's Taksim
Square, and a terrorist attack. A BBC Radio 4 "Book of the Week" at
publication, it's one of the most compelling travel books I've read
in a long time, as well as a thought-provoking meditation on what
it means to have faith in our turbulent contemporary world
*Bookseller*
‘I loved it. Stagg is an engaging, challenging, endlessly
interesting companion who just happens to write formidably well.
Travel writing has a bright new star.’
*Alexander Frater, author of Chasing the Monsoon*
Behind the cliché of the most important journey in life being the
one taken inside oneself lies a timeless and powerful and vital
truth: that the goal of such a quest, with all its anguish and
revelation and excruciating realisations, is a place of great and
lasting calm. This is the core of Guy Stagg’s necessary and
beautiful book.
*Niall Griffiths, author of Grits*
The Crossway is a gentle, kind, generous-spirited book, rich in
detail, encounter and history. But most importantly, this is the
story of a young man, from a secular world, who undertakes a
pilgrimage to try and mend himself – a courageous inner
journey.
*Neil Griffiths, author of As a God Might Be*
What a privilege it's been to read this compelling and moving book,
to travel with a writer who records everything he sees and feels
with such care and passion. The writing is beautiful and his voice
so engaging, so unflinchingly honest, throughout. I finished The
Crossway and just wanted the author to keep walking.
*James Macdonald Lockhart, author of Raptor*
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