Rachel Joyce: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

[DATo]

Harold Fry is a recently retired man living in Kingsbridge, on the southern tip of England with a wife who apparently no longer loves him. Fry receives a telegram from Queenie Hennesey, an ex-coworker, stating that she is in a hospice dying of cancer at Berwick-Upon-Tweed in the far off regions of Scotland. Queenie just wanted to say goodbye. Harold tells his wife that he is just going to put the letter in the post box. But before he does, for some reason he decides to just pop down to the post office to send his reply. As he makes his way to the post office and recounts his friendship with Queenie and the enormous debt he owes her he absentmindedly passes the post office, and then the next, and the next as well. He is going to deliver the telegram himself because somehow Harold contrives the delusion that if Queenie waits for him she will not die. He telephones the hospice but Queenie’s condition prevents her from speaking on the phone but he is made to understand that she is aware that he is coming. Casually dressed and wearing only his yachting shoes to protect his feet he embarks upon a pilgrimage of epic proportions. The story is actually TWO stories : the physical journey of Harold Fry and the emotional journey of his wife, Maureen.

This book walks the line between humor and heartbreak. It is a bit reminiscent of Forest Gump which also vacillated between pathos and hilarity. I'd rate it a 3 of 5. Not a blockbuster but fun to read and an enjoyable diversion from the more serious tomes I've been reading lately i.e Thomas Mann.

 

[CrankyPants]

I greatly enjoyed this book -- I love road trips, real and fictional. It made me wish it was easier to take long treks in the US, on lightly traveled roads with small towns and friendly farms every few miles. Those days are gone.

 

[Maine Colonial]

I liked that book in a lot of ways, but it frustrated me how Harold let people walk all over him and never just said no, he didn't want what was happening. I understand that his failure to communicate on the trip was just a small taste of how that failure between him and his wife led to such a huge gap between them, but that somehow didn't make it less frustrating. Still, well worth reading.

 

[CrankyPants]

Well, I'm a bit like Harold, so I could relate. Peace is more important to me than honest communication, and I hate confrontation more than anything. I tell myself it comes with age. I was much more feisty when I was younger but even then I'd defend others while letting people walk all over me.

I've encountered a lot of husbands like Harold in fiction -- not so many wives though, curiously.