A lovely book, concerned with regret and the way our lives can drift away from us and turn out so very, very differently than our basically-well-intentioned hearts had hoped. One morning, retired and married Harold Fry receives a note from a woman he knew decades ago, indicating that she is in hospice and saying farewell. He knows no reply will be adequate, but jots a brief, meaningless one down anyway, and walks to the mail box to send it--but then, not quite knowing why, doesn’t send it. He just keeps walking, thinking he’ll mail it at the next mailbox, and instead, on a whim that feels right, decides to walk to the hospice itself, 600 miles away. Reviews have called this premise "twee". Well, okay, but the book didn’t feel cute to me. I loved the first half (the latter less so, but still liked it), and the novel contained the most indelible empty-clothes scene since Gatsby’s shirts. This book would be neat paired with Cheryl Strayed’s "Wild" in a book club--I got drawn in to the rhythm of walking when I read each of them, each time feeling like I wanted to remain on the trail.

posted Nov 3, 2012 at 12:41PM

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