Monday Book Nook: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel by Rachel Joyce

I would never have picked this up in a million years unless I was in an airport with sudden flight cancellations and had no alternative (the cover might have attracted me, and the name is somewhat evocative). But I did pick it up because I joined a book club and this was the book they were currently reading. I was pleasantly, curiously, surprised, and even more taken by the responses of the other women in the club (it’s a women’s only group). The story is about a man and his journey both across land and across the landscape of his interior life. Yet it is written by a woman, and the book club ladies all said they couldn’t put it down. Me, either, really. It’s an easy read, and trotted me along with chapter-end hangers that kept me turning the pages. But more than that, it’s an interesting assertion that all wounds – no matter how old – can be mended. And even more than that, the fictional character Fry leaves a little map of his inner journey of how to go about mending such wounds. He walks, I dream, but he does teach a very important lesson about guilt and how to repair it. See what you think – and I am very curious to hear what the male dreamers think!