How can she wait?Ī new volunteer at the hospice suggests that Queenie should write again only this time she must tell Harold everything. When Queenie Hennessy discovers that Harold Fry is walking the length of England to save her, and all she has to do is wait, she is shocked. Is it possible for Harold and Maureen to bridge the distance between them? And will Queenie be alive to see Harold arrive at her door? Ironically, his wife Maureen, shocked by her husband's sudden absence, begins to long for his presence. Along the way, strangers stir up memories-flashbacks, often painful, from when his marriage was filled with promise and then not, of his inadequacy as a father, and of his shortcomings as a husband. So without hiking boots, rain gear, map or cell phone, one of the most endearing characters in current fiction begins his unlikely pilgrimage across the English countryside. Leaving his tense, bitter wife Maureen to her chores, Harold intends a quick walk to the corner mailbox to post his reply but instead, inspired by a chance encounter, he becomes convinced he must deliver his message in person to Queenie-who is 600 miles away-because as long as he keeps walking, Harold believes that Queenie will not die. She has written to say she is in hospice and wanted to say goodbye. Recently retired, sweet, emotionally numb Harold Fry is jolted out of his passivity by a letter from Queenie Hennessy, an old friend, who he hasn't heard from in twenty years.

The unexpected pilgrimage of harold fry