The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

The Inward Journey

Rachel Joyce’s book, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, is not new; it came out in 2012, but it’s the kind of book than can be shared whenever one comes across it. It was on the longlist for the Man Booker Prize and was also a bestseller for months.

The idea is simple and profound, if somewhat over sentimental, still, the story is deeply stirring.  Harold Fry is in his sixties, retired from a brewery, and living the quiet suburban life with his bitter wife Maureen. Their marriage fell apart years ago, and both exist in a haze of stultifying routine.

Then, one day, a letter arrives out of the blue.  It is from Harold’s old colleague, Queenie Hennessy, who had disappeared years ago and had no contact with him for twenty years.  Now she has written to tell him that she is dying of cancer in a hospice in distant Berwick-upon-Tweed, and just wants to say goodbye.

Harold and Queenie had formed a tentative friendship when they worked together, but nothing deep or lasting. But he is affected by the news and sets out to post a reply.  On the way, he is somehow unable to post the letter and keeps walking till he reaches a fast food joint, where the serving girl tells him that all it needs for a patient to recover from terminal illness is faith—someone must believe that they will live, and that faith can work a miracle.

Harold gets it into his head to walk to Berwick-upon-Tweed. He calls the hospice and tells the nun who answers that he is in his way on foot, and that Queenie must wait for him.  He writes to Queenie, "I am on my way. All you have to do is wait. Because I'm going to save you. I will keep walking, and you must keep living."

Then, without adequate clothing, or proper shoes, without a map or even his cell phone, he sets out on the long 600-mile journey to the other end of the country.  He risks spending his retirement savings on this foolhardy enterprise.

The walk which is physically draining for man his age, turns out to be one that fills a void in his life that he did not even know existed. But for that letter, he would have carried on with his unhappy life, without having discovered all the beauty around, or meeting so many kind and generous people, and even some strange ones.

At some point Harold’s ‘pilgrimage’ become a media sensation, he is followed around by a bunch of people, who try to hijack his mission.  On the way, Harold divests himself of everything he was carrying and proceeds on the walk like a hobo—eating whatever was available, drinking spring water, and patching his frayed yachting shoes with duct tape.

Meanwhile, as Maureen keeps track of his journey through his phone calls and media reports—her intense loneliness changes her too. The couple has been struggling with grief and guilt over what happened to their son. But the sense of lingering sorrow is expressed by their busybody neighbour Rex, who lost his wife. “I miss her all the time. I know in my head that she has gone. the only difference is that I am getting used to the pain. It's like discovering a great hole in the ground. To begin with, you forget it's there and keep falling in. After a while, it's still there, but you learn to walk round it."

Finally, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is about that inner journey too, for which it is never too late to start. It’s a wonderful book, and as unputdownable as a thriller.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Publisher: Random House

Pages: 384

The Hurricane Sisters

Carolina Spice

Eighty-year old Maisie Pringle has found love with Skipper, a younger man devoted to her, who owns a Llama farm of all things.  When Dorothea Benton Frank’s–The Hurricane Sisters--opens, she is waiting for her family to arrive at the fancy restaurant for her birthday lunch.

Her daughter Liz is supposedly happily married to financial wiz Clayton, but there is kind of loneliness in her life that is left even more acute with the departure of her kids.  The death of her beautiful, artistic sister Juliet in the distant past, hangs over their lives, since Maisie keeps bringing up her dead daughter in every conversation.

Liz’s daughter Ashley lives with her friend Mary Beth in the old family beach house, works at a low-end job and hopes to be an artist. Liz thinks her mother is spoiling Ashley with money and undeserved praise.

At the lunch, Liz’s son Ivy turns up with his Asian partner James, and it is clear to the family that the much older man is not merely a business partner, and they have to suddenly deal with this new facet to Ivy’s life.

Liz fills her empty days working with a shelter for battered women, and treats it as a mission to be undertaken seriously.  As she tries to raise funds for victims of domestic violence and their children, it is revealed that the South Carolina, where they live, tops the list in the state wise domestic abuse statistics.

As Liz discovers her husband’s infidelity, Ashley gets into a doomed relationship with Senator Porter Galloway, who seems to be a Prince Charming, but is arrogant, narrow-minded, and when provoked, violent.

Even though the family is dysfunctional and Liz finds herself almost isolated by her mother’s indifference and daughter’s independence, there is love buried beneath the coldness, and when crisis—and a hurricane—strikes, the family comes together to battle it out.

While it’s all too pat and neatly tried up, Frank narrates the story with straightforward simplicity, and makes it inspiring and heartwarming.  Worth a read. 

The Hurricane Sisters

By Dorothea Benton Frank

Publisher: William Morrow

Pages: 320

The Girl On The Train

Off The Tracks

Rachel Watson commutes to and from London every day, and from the window she sees couple she names Jess and Jason, and in her mind gives them ideal lives.

She is an alcoholic and her life is in the dumps. After her marriage to Tom broke down, he married a pretty young woman, Anna, who promptly gave him a much-wanted child. She lives as a lodger with the kindly Cathy, who puts up with her craziness.  She hasn’t the courage to confess even to her only friend that she lost her job months ago and pretends to go to work every day, spending her time in a boozy haze.

She drunk dials Tom constantly, and makes a nuisance of herself, because she is seldom sober to even feel embarrassed. Her old home is a few doors down from that of her ‘Golden Couple’ so every time the row of houses appear by the tracks, her anguish multiples.

Then, one day, she sees ‘Jess’ kissing another man, and soon after comes news that the woman, whose real name is Megan, has gone missing and her husband, Scott, is the prime suspect. Suddenly the life of the lovely couple seems even more sordid than her own, and only she knows of the other man. Because of her obvious mental instability, the cops treat her with contempt. Much to Rachel’s despair, she knows there was something that she witnessed the night Megan disappeared, but she has a memory blackout.

Paula Hawkins’s debut novel, has zoomed up the bestselling charts, and its success is being compared to that of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.  Rachel is a pathetic woman to have as a protagonist, but that does not take away from the suspense that is revealed gradually. The story is told in the voices of Rachel, Megan and Anna—all three women trying to find happiness with unworthy men, and all going through varying degrees of suburban ennui. The rail tracks by their homes and the trains passing up and down all promise escape and adventure that they will never have.

In every chapter some new fact springs out and the fate of Megan seems to be linked to all the characters.  There is some monotony in Rachel’s falling on and off the wagon, but still, it’s a very good read.

The Girl On The Train

By Paula Hawkins

Publisher: Riverhead

Pages: 336

Mean Streak

Doc In Distress

Sandra Brown’s new bestseller Mean Streak may not be classified as chick-lit, but the romantic thriller has been written for a predominantly female readership. The heroine’s appearance is wrapped up in a few lines, but the hero’s eyes, muscles, arms, chest, height—his all-American maleness come up for detailed descriptions several times. The handsome, brooding bloke also has a mysterious past—to tame a man like that would be a fantasy for many women.

Emory Charbonneau is a wealthy paediatrician and marathon runner.  Her marriage to finance professional Jeff is already in trouble when she goes off on her own to a remote mountain trail to train for an upcoming race for charity. She doesn’t know it then, but Jeff is having an affair with her best friend Alice.

She wakes up with a head injury in a rugged log cabin, where the well-built, aquamarine-eyed stranger has been looking after her. He does all it takes to make her comfortable and pain-free, but won’t tell her his name or anything else. He claims he cannot call emergency services because he does not have a phone, and her phone’s battery is dead. He cannot take her back to the nearest town either, because snow and fog have made the roads dangerous to drive on.

After two days of not hearing from her, Jeff goes to the cops, but the two police officers, Knight and Grange who work on the case, have reason to believe that Jeff could have killed her and is playing the role of the worried husband to fool them.

In yet another strand, an FBI agent, Connell, is hunting for the mountain man, in connection with a mass shooting some years ago.

Captive in the cabin, in fragile emotional state, Emory is as afraid of her rescuer/captor as she is attracted to him.  When he drags her off to steal medical supplies to treat a young girl in the neighbourhood, who has been brutalised by her brothers, she is even more confused – the man is violent towards the delinquent brothers, but treats the girl with tenderness and care. Emory succumbs to his magnetism, and some steamy sex follows.

After four days, when he releases her back to civilisation, Emory has to tell the detectives a bunch of half truths, because she does not want them to hunt for the man.  But he has left a trace that brings Connell rushing there, which is when his name is revealed, as well as his complicated past.

There are many more twists and turns to the story, which is fast-paced and efficiently written, but also formulaic—perhaps Brown’s readers want it that way. Still it’s a quick, light entertaining read.

Mean Streak

By Sandra Brown

Publisher: Grand Central

Pages 416