When Harold Fry leaves home one morning to post a letter, with his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other.
He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else’s life.
Harold Fry is the most ordinary of men. He just might be a hero for us all.
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Praise for The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry
‘Last year the time came to pick 2012’s ‘new faces’ for books: I read a pile of first novels and enjoyed a few, but there was only one I adored, and that was The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry…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 Fry himself is just wonderful…This book may follow a pattern set by another radio-dramatist-turned-novelist, David Nicholls…I love this book.’ Erica Wagner, The Times.
‘Joyce has an unerring ability to convey profound emotions in simple, unaffected language…An original, quietly courageous testament to the inhuman effort of being normal.’ Guardian.
‘Deploying meticulously precise and deceptively light-as-air prose, Joyce takes Harold across the bitter wastelands of regret to the sunlit uplands of emotional redemption with a clarity that is at times almost unbearably moving.’ Sunday Times.
‘Distinguished by remarkable confidence..Polished to perfection..Joyce’s experience as a playwright shows in her ear for dialogue and eye for characterisation – even the walk-on parts stay with you as real people. She handles her material with deceptive lightness but Harold’s journey towards a better version of himself is totemic. To read about him is to be moved by him.’ Telegraph.