The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce

[goodreads]

Title: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Author: Rachel Joyce
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 2.5/5
# pages: 357
Date read: October, 2016

Recently retired, sweet, emotionally numb Harold Fry is jolted out of his passivity by a letter from Queenie Hennessy, an old friend, who he hasn't heard from in twenty years. She has written to say she is in hospice and wanted to say goodbye. Leaving his tense, bitter wife Maureen to her chores, Harold intends a quick walk to the corner mailbox to post his reply but instead, inspired by a chance encounter, he becomes convinced he must deliver his message in person to Queenie--who is 600 miles away--because as long as he keeps walking, Harold believes that Queenie will not die.

So without hiking boots, rain gear, map or cell phone, one of the most endearing characters in current fiction begins his unlikely pilgrimage across the English countryside. Along the way, strangers stir up memories--flashbacks, often painful, from when his marriage was filled with promise and then not, of his inadequacy as a father, and of his shortcomings as a husband.


I'd expected to love this, so this low rating was both surprising and disappointing.

My opinion of this book changed hugely while reading it. It went from being slightly slow-moving, but very charming and British, to being really frustrating and kinda depressing... although it did have a hopeful ending, I guess.

I'd heard it compared to "The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of a Window and Disappeared", which is a misrepresentation if I ever saw one! The two are nothing alike! (I'd be more inclined to say it has shades of "Forest Gump" - but it's been so many years since I read that one, so I might be wrong). I got fonder of both Harold and Maureen as the book went along, but thought the 'twist' completely unnecessary (not the contents of the twist, but the fact that it was kept a secret to be revealed, rather than just being open about it from the beginning).

Apparently there is a companion novel, told from Queenie's POV. I don't think I'll be reading that one.