Saturday, April 09, 2016

Books read in 2016: No. 9 -- The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

by Rachel Joyce

Started: April 2
Finished: April 9

Notes: In this novel an Englishman discovers an old friend is dying and decides to walk across country (ala Forrest Gump style, I suppose) to see the friend. Why he doesn't drive, I don't know, but I first heard about this novel and its author a few years ago when she was being interviewed on NPR. She and the plot drew my interest, so here goes.

Mini review: This is a truly wonderful novel. It's a touch slow at first, but one soon learns to love the characters, even those who at first don't seem like nice people. This is a touching tale of an elderly couple with a tragic past who have grown apart over the years, but eventually ... well, I don't want to give it away. Just a great book. Not an action-oriented book, but probably the best of the modern literary tales I've read in a long while. Though this a better written book, it reminds me a bit of my own novel, More Than Kin.

2 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I should stretch my reading in this kind of direction

Ty said...

Honestly, this easily could have been a fantasy tale. It's basically a quest set in the modern world.