Limbo

(Paperback)

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In a world that demands faith in progress and growth, LIMBO is a companion for the stuck, the isolated, delayed, stranded, and trapped. Fusing family memoir with a meditation on creative block, depression, solitude, class, place and the intractable politics of our present moment, Dan Fox draws upon his experiences as a writer to consider the role that fallow periods and states of impasse play in art and life. LIMBO is an essay about getting by when you can't get along, employing a cast of artists, exiles, ghosts, hermits and sailors - including the author's older brother who, in 1985, left England for good to sail the world - to reflect on the creative, emotional and political consequences of being stuck, and how these are also crucial to our understanding of inspiration, flow and productivity. From Thomas Aquinas to radical behavioural experiments, from creative constraints to the social horrors of THE TWILIGHT ZONE and Get Out's SUNKEN PLACE, LIMBO argues that there can be no growth without stagnancy, no movement without inactivity, and no progress without refusal.

Reviews

'Dan Fox has produced a fascinating work of understated excellence, particularly given his starting point. Eloquent in its consideration of the subjects it focuses on and elegant in the brevity and precision of its chapters, Limbo gets to the heart of the matter and gives you something to think about.' - Pendora Magazine

'Open-spirited and beautifully written.' - Kate Wakeling, TLS

'Limbo mixes the historical, the conceptual and the anecdotal in a very elegant way, and it is a testament to Fox's ability as a writer that he can make, in what is a relatively short book, such disparate ideas and stories fall into place in a narrative that feels really clear and organised. ... While obviously an astute cultural theorist who can draw on a truly diverse range of sources, it is the personal element of Limbo brings out the storyteller in Fox. ... it is in writing about his family relationships, and the transition through adolescence into adulthood, which brings the true depth to the book.' - The London Magazine

Author Bio

Dan Fox is a writer, musician, and filmmaker. He is based in New York.