The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. New York: Random House, 2012. 320 pages. ****
Harold Fry receives a good-bye letter from a friend he hasn't seen in 20 years. Queenie Hennessy is dying of cancer and the letter brings back memories of how things ended when Queenie left the brewery where they both worked. Harold writes a reply and heads out for a short walk to the mailbox to post it. Leaving behind his wife and his cell phone, Harold has a hard time mailing his reply and gets it into his head that his response is inadequate and he needs to deliver his good-bye in person. Harold begins his six hundred mile pilgrimage ill-equipped with boat shoes, no umbrella, no sense of the best route, only the clear conviction that it must be on foot and Queenie must stay alive until he gets there.
This story chronicles Harold's journey and the people he meets along the way and the realization that "he had come to trust in the basic goodness of people." (page 198) He acquires a few followers along the way who attempt to hijack his pilgrimage and steer him the way that they want to go and they provide another valuable life lesson for Harold.
As much as I liked Harold's story, I realized that Maureen, his wife left behind, had many of her own life-affirming moments in his absence. I could totally relate to both of their situation and points of view. Joyce captured some of the feelings of couples that have been married for many years, reach retirement and lose their individual and combined sense of purpose. I laughed, I cried, I worried whether Harold was going to make it and cheered him on. I couldn't help but wonder if I would be up to the task, could I do it?
A neighbor who stopped at my Little Free Library recommended this book and I am so glad she did, sometimes the exact book that we need finds us.
Fans of The Elegant Gathering of White Snows by Kris Radish or The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg will enjoy Harold Fry's pilgrimage.
Rachel Joyce is the author of the Sunday Times and international bestsellers The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, and Perfect. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
was short-listed for the Commonwealth Book Prize and long-listed for
the Man Booker Prize and has been translated into thirty-six languages.
Her latest book is Miss Benson's Beetle, an Amazon November 2020 Best Book. Joyce was awarded the Specsavers National Book Awards New Writer of the
Year in 2012. She is also the author of the digital short story A Faraway Smell of Lemon
and is the award-winning writer of more than thirty original afternoon
plays and classic adaptations for BBC Radio 4. Rachel Joyce lives with
her family in Gloucestershire.
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