![]() On a base level the reader begins to empathise with Harold’s tortured emotions towards Queenie and this only heightens throughout the walk.įrom the beginning of the walk and the book the reader is aware of a pain lying just underneath the surface of Harold. ![]() Indeed, it is Harold, and at times his wife Maureen, who the reader becomes best acquainted with. Joyce alludes to a lack of family or friends but this, it feels, is only mentioned to add impetus to the protagonist’s pilgrimage. ![]() ![]() The walk, or pilgrimage, increasingly becomes interlinked with Harold’s own grief and spiritual pain as he becomes convinced that by undertaking such a walk he can not only keep his old friend alive, but also repent for the mistakes he has made in years gone by.Īlthough Harold’s friend Queenie is in a hospice with terminal cancer, the reader only gets brief glances at the physical, spiritual and social pain that she is experiencing. Harold is a retired Englishman who embarks on 600 mile walk from Devon to Berwick to visit an old friend who is dying of cancer. Joyce’s heart-warming novel charts the unlikely story of Harold Fry. If ever a fictional book has illustrated the importance of ‘spiritual care’ as an integral part of palliative care, it is Rachel Joyce’s debut novel, ‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’. ![]()
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