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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST
“[Rachel] Joyce’s beguiling debut is [a] modest-seeming story of ‘ordinary’ English lives that enthralls and moves you as it unfolds.”—People (four stars)
Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning a letter arrives, addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl, from a woman he hasn’t heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. But before Harold mails off a quick reply, a chance encounter convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. In his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold Fry embarks on an urgent quest. Determined to walk six hundred miles to the hospice, Harold believes that as long as he walks, Queenie will live. A novel of charm, humor, and profound insight into the thoughts and feelings we all bury deep within our hearts, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry introduces Rachel Joyce as a wise—and utterly irresistible—storyteller.
Praise for The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
“[A] gorgeously poignant novel of hope and transformation.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“A cause for celebration . . . [Joyce] has a lovely sense of the possibilities of redemption. In this bravely unpretentious and unsentimental take, she’s cleared space where miracles are still possible.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is not just a book about lost love. It is about all the wonderful everyday things Harold discovers through the mere process of putting one foot in front of the other.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.
- Sales Rank: #4572 in Books
- Published on: 2013-03-26
- Released on: 2013-03-26
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.10" h x .80" w x 5.20" l, .61 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 384 pages
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, July 2012: Harold Fry--retired sales rep, beleaguered husband, passive observer of his own life--decides one morning to walk 600 miles across England to save an old friend. It might not work, mind you, but that's hardly the point. In playwright Rachel Joyce's pitch-perfect first novel, Harold wins us over with his classic antiheroism. Setting off on the long journey, he wears the wrong jacket, doesn't have a toothbrush, and leaves his phone at home--in short, he is wholly, endearingly unprepared. But as he travels, Harold finally has time to reflect on his failings as a husband, father, and friend, and this helps him become someone we (and, more important, his wife Maureen) can respect. After walking for a while in Harold Fry's very human shoes, you might find that your own fit a bit better. --Mia Lipman
Review
Praise for The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
“[A] gorgeously poignant novel of hope and transformation.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“You have to love Harold Fry, a man who set out one morning to mail a letter and then just kept going. . . . Like Christian in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Harold becomes Everyman in the eyes of those who encounter him. . . . Harold's journey, which parallels Christian's nicely but not overly neatly, takes him to the edge of death and back again. It will stick with you, this story of faith, fidelity and redemption.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“For all of us perfectly responsible, stoop-shouldered suburbanites wearing a path in the living-room carpet, Harold’s ridiculous journey is a cause for celebration. This is Walter Mitty skydiving. This is J. Alfred Prufrock not just eating that peach, but throwing the pit out the window, rolling up his trousers and whistling to those hot mermaids. Released from the cage of his own passivity, Harold feels transformed, though he keeps his tie on. . . . In this bravely unpretentious and unsentimental tale, she’s cleared space where miracles are still possible.” —Washington Post
"[R]emarkable. . . . I can't think of a better recommendation for summer reading. And take your time, just as Harold does.”—USA Today, four out of four stars review
[A] story of present-day courage. . . . . about how easily a mousy, domesticated man can get lost and how joyously he can be refound.”—Janet Maslin, New York Times
“From its charming beginning to its startling and cathartic denouement, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is a comic and tragic joy.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“When it seems almost too late, Harold Fry opens his battered heart and lets the world rush in. This funny, poignant story about an ordinary man on an extraordinary journey moved and inspired me.”—Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank
“There’s tremendous heart in this debut novel by Rachel Joyce, as she probes questions that are as simple as they are profound: Can we begin to live again, and live truly, as ourselves, even in middle age, when all seems ruined? Can we believe in hope when hope seems to have abandoned us? I found myself laughing through tears, rooting for Harold at every step of his journey. I’m still rooting for him.”—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife
“Marvelous! I held my breath at his every blister and cramp, and felt as if by turning the pages, I might help his impossible quest succeed.”—Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
“Harold’s journey is ordinary and extraordinary; it is a journey through the self, through modern society, through time and landscape. It is a funny book, a wise book, a charming book—but never cloying. It’s a book with a savage twist—and yet never seems manipulative. Perhaps because Harold himself is just wonderful. . . . I’m telling you now: I love this book.”—Erica Wagner, The Times (UK)
“The odyssey of a simple man . . . original, subtle and touching.”—Claire Tomalin, author of Charles Dickens: A Life
“The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry takes the most ordinary and unassuming of men and turns him into a hero for us all. To go on this journey with Harold will not only break your heart, it might just also heal it.”—Tiffany Baker, author of The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
“A gentle and genteel charmer, brimming with British quirkiness yet quietly haunting in its poignant and wise examination of love and devotion. Sure to become a book-club favorite.”— Booklist
About the Author
Rachel Joyce is an award-winning writer of more than twenty plays for BBC Radio 4. She started writing after a twenty-year acting career, in which she performed leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and won multiple awards. Rachel Joyce lives in Gloucestershire on a farm with her family and is at work on her second novel.
From the Hardcover edition.
Most helpful customer reviews
430 of 457 people found the following review helpful.
A LOVELY AND UNASSUMING NOVEL ABOUT PEOPLE YOU WILL LIKE
By David Keymer
Harold Fry, six months retired from his job as sales representative for a local brewery, gets a letter from Queenie, a woman he'd worked with twenty years before but hasn't seen since. She tells him that she's dying of cancer. The news upsets him for years earlier, Queenie had done him a great favor and he'd never had the chance to thank her. He sits down to write a letter to her but finds it hard to say anything without seeming . . . "limp,' is the word that comes to his mind. When he has finished the letter, he leaves the house to mail it but when he gets to the mailbox, he walks on to the next one, and then the next, and the next, and soon he's at the opposite edge of town. He stops at a convenience store to get something to eat. He tells the girl at the counter that he has a friend who has cancer and he's got a letter he's going to post to her. The girl talks about her aunt who had cancer. She says science doesn't know everything, you have to believe a person can get better. "You see, if you have faith, you can do anything."
In that moment, Harold, who's spent most of his life doing only the ordinary and comfortable at all, realizes what he must do. He's going to walking to his friend's sickbed. He knows it's not reasonable but he's convinced that as long as he keeps walking toward her, his friend will stay alive. He telephones the hospice, tells Queenie's nurse to take her a message: "Tell her Harold Fry is on his way. All she has to do is wait. . . . I am going to save her, you see. I will keep walking and she must keep living. Will you say that? . . . Tell her this time I won't let her down."
And that's how Harold sets out on a six hundred mile journey, from Kingsbridge to Berwick upon Tweed, utterly unprepared for the trip and dressed in everyday clothes, not hiking gear. On his way, he meets all sorts of people and has all sorts of adventures, more small than large. ("Life was very different when you walked through it," Harold observes.) As he walks, the memories pile in: memories of a mother who abandoned him and a harsh, unforgiving father; the happy early years with his wife, Maureen; their hopes for their son David. But David intimidates Harold and Maude with his intelligence and his intransigence. He puts down his father for reading the wrong newspaper, as though that single fact renders him unfit to comment on anything. His mother makes excuses for him, "He's clever, you see," and the author observes, "implicit in the remark was the conviction that cleverness was both an excuse for everything, and out of their reach." (How sad!) Something happens and Maureen and he fall out. They no longer connect, no longer talk or share experiences. They still live together --in a modest cottage, shuttered with white net curtains that hide the world outside- but their lives are loveless and claustrophobic, where once they had been happy. What happened?
It would be wrong to reveal more of what happens in this lovely novel. In the end, both Harold and Maude learn something about themselves but as to what they learn, read it for yourself.
This is a quite good read. I'm uncomfortable with books that are overly sentimental - but though at times, this book comes close to being mawkish, it never is. The author avoids excess even in a book as filled with feeling as this one is; she doesn't clobber the reader over the head with a message. At one point in the book, Harold picks up followers, who want to join him on his pilgrimage across England. This part of the book seems contrived -too deliberately comic in its overtones- but still, even this portion is eminently readable. As to Harold and Maude, they are wonderful creations.
I particularly like the way the author describes things. She catches the way a not terribly well educated, not at all original late-middle aged man like Harold would see things, expressing his view of them in ordinary (concrete) language that yet has its own poetry. Thus Harold observes a woman he meets on the way: "Her eyes were round, as if she had contact lenses that maybe hurt." His next door neighbor, Rex, "was a short man with tidy feet at the bottom, a small head at the top, and a very round body in the middle, causing Harold to fear sometimes that if he fell there would be no stopping him. He would roll down the hill like a barrel."
Ultimately this novel is about redemption. It's not grand and certainly not flashy. But it is very human.
173 of 183 people found the following review helpful.
A Subversive Novel
By L. M. Keefer
This book may inspire you to go for a long walk--for 500 miles or so--like its protagonist Harold Fry did across England. You see how walking through your world five to ten miles a day for 500 miles might transform you. "Life was very different when you walked through it," realizes Harold.
Harold Fry lives invisibly and conventionally. His wife, Maureen, has become like her taste in toast: "cold and crisp". One day a letter arrives for Harold that changes their lives. The letter causes him to do something irrational and unpredictable. But as a waitress sympathetically told him in my favorite line of the book, "If we don't go mad once in a while, there's no hope." (That sounds so oddly rational that I have been contemplating what "mad" thing to do to increase the hope quotient. This may be a subversive book.)
Howard takes off on foot on a pilgrimage to see the writer of this letter. As a kind of modern CANTERBURY TALES, Howard meets many eccentric and colorful characters who cause him to see life in a new way. The pleasure of this book for me was rejoicing in Harold's transformation and the new life and self he is beginning to create. "He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was also his journey to accept the strangeness of others." Meanwhile his wife, Maureen, is simultaneously changing at home: "She had given herself a challenge: every day without him, she would attempt one new thing." This book chronicles the changes these two characters undergo during Harold's pilgrimage which oddly brings them closer.
The other huge pleasure of this book is the author's original and vibrant writing. Some choice examples:
* "His shirt, tie, and trousers were folded small as an apology on a faded blue velvet chair."
* "They spoke with the same cut-glass loud accent as Maureen's mother had used."
* "In the morning, her frocks were strewn like empty mothers all over the small house."
I couldn't help wonder how the author could write so gorgeously in a first book. Learned she previously had a twenty-year acting career performing leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company speaking the immortal words of the Bard himself--what better training? That background combined with writing plays for BBC Radio must have helped the author to create some of the best prose I have read recently. (This is a tad random, but if the author ever had the desire to write a mystery, her ability to sketch intriguing characters and situations with delicious prose could combine in an original and quirky mystery series like Kate Atkinson and John Banville/Benjamin Black have done.)
If you like a lot of action in a novel, this is more introspective fare. Sometimes the book moves slowly like a meandering and melancholy walk as Howard revisits in his mind his unlived and mournful life. Othertimes, you may just want to buy Harold a thick pair of socks and sturdy walking shoes so you won't have to read about his blisters anymore.
If you enjoy original and thoughtful novels of introspection and character transformation, you may enjoy this novel which moves from melancholy to buoyancy as Harold walks into an encouraging and promising future. If you enjoy stories of positive transformation, this novel may beguile you. And if you don't decide to "go a little mad once in a while", at the least you will probably enjoy walking more with a sense of its possibilities after reading this winsome novel.
112 of 118 people found the following review helpful.
A bit slow at first, but ultimately rewarding
By K. Blaine
I selected "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" to read and review because I loved "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand," a book to which it was compared in the publisher's preview. And while I prefer "Major Pettigrew" for its pacing and multicultural appeal, I wholeheartedly recommend "Harold Fry." It has charms of its own.
Henry David Thoreau observed, "The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation," and I could not help but recall this quotation as I began Rachel Joyce's lovely debut novel. As the novel begins, Harold is merely existing. The reader is not given many details, but it is clear that Harold's marriage to Maureen is an empty shell, and that there are problems in his relationship with his adult son, David. Then Harold gets a farewell letter of sorts from a friend, Queenie Hennessy, and his carefully orchestrated charade of a life begins to come apart. Queenie had "done something nice" for Harold twenty years previous, and he always regretted not thanking her. Whatever this is is shrouded in mystery, and many readers will suspect a long-past affair. All these questions are a bit disconcerting, but if the reader is patient, all will be resolved.
Harold writes a "pro forma" response to Queenie's note, but as he goes out to mail it, something prevents him from putting it in the first mailbox he comes to. He passes postbox after postbox, and eventually makes an impulsive decision to walk from his hometown to Queenie's hospice, about 600 miles. Thus begins his transformation from a kind of living death to fullness of life.
Readers who are familiar with Joseph Campbell's "The Hero's Journey" will immediately recognize the motif: the hero leaves the world he knows to embark on a quest. Along the way he meets both helpers and tempters, and he eventually returns to the known world with a fullness of knowledge or with something to enrich his community and himself.
Harold Fry fits this motif to a tee. He meets many people and even animals along the way, and he gains something of value from each of them, even those who would deter him from his quest. Meanwhile, back at home, Maureen is undergoing her own transformation as she worries and responds to Harold's calls, postcards, and gifts. Nothing is as Harold or Maureen expect it to be. And the end of the quest is rewarding, but not in the way Harold imagines.
One final observation: This is a beautifully written novel. Most readers will love the use of language, especially in descriptions of the natural world. I am stunned that this is the author's first novel, though she has written many screenplays for the BBC. I hope to read much more of her work.
Most readers will like and appreciate "Harold Fry" if they persevere through the ambiguity at the beginning. Everything falls together eventually, I promise! Highly recommended.
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