The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry book review

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Another book which you must download or buy for the next holiday is The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce which I have just finished reading and found absorbing and thought provoking too.

Harold Fry leads a very quiet life. Mundane, repetitive and extremely unglamourous. He is unhappily married, retired, bored and almost just waiting for death yet one day, going out to post a letter while his wife is vacuuming upstairs, he decides to just keep on walking.

And here starts the beginning of an extraordinary adventure for Harold and a journey which looks at human behaviour and reaction to the different and odd. This book, which was long-listed for the Booker, has us following Harold on his 600 mile walk from his home and wife in Devon to Berwick-upon-Tweed. He believes that this journey will help his friend who is dying of cancer, to live. With yachting shoes on his feet, a cashpoint bank card, no maps and no waterproofs we feel every step of the journey as he takes this often painful but enlightening road.

With Maureen is at first angry and ashamed but during their time apart she comes to terms with events that have driven a wedge between them and remembers how much her husband meant and still means to her.

He attracts a growing band of fellow pilgrims - some jumping on the publicity wagon, some searching for their own inner peace and we meet some very good people along the way.

It's a quiet story befitting a quiet character but is one that doesn't leave you. We all have our moments when it would be simpler to walk away from life's disappointments and trials, but we never do, and it is following someone who steps out into the unknown take on a rhythm and meaning that makes this story so compelling. It's a book of small detail rather than big ideas but you do want to know how it all ends...

Anyone else read this and if you did what did you think?

Available for your Kindle now for £2.69