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Pilgrimage
At forty-nine, Celeste has long renounced the religion of her childhood. Yet she finds herself reluctantly accompanying her mother and sister to a pilgrimage site in Romania, where her devout mother seeks a miracle — a cure for her terminal illness.
As Celeste tries to come to terms with her mother's impending decline, she realises she has to confront the unspoken conflicts embedded in the foundations of her family. Away from her husband, she must also face her fear of what the future holds for them both.
Full of compassion, warmth and grace, Pilgrimage is a powerful meditation on how our personal histories haunt us, and an affirmation of the hope and sustenance that may be found in our imperfect families.
As Celeste tries to come to terms with her mother's impending decline, she realises she has to confront the unspoken conflicts embedded in the foundations of her family. Away from her husband, she must also face her fear of what the future holds for them both.
Full of compassion, warmth and grace, Pilgrimage is a powerful meditation on how our personal histories haunt us, and an affirmation of the hope and sustenance that may be found in our imperfect families.
- GenresFiction
324 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 10, 2012
Probably three and a half stars. Highly readable and thought provoking read but I just couldn't give it four stars.
This story of a Celeste, a forty nine year old childless woman, whose mother, Patricia, is diagnosed with motor neurone disease, had me interested from the beginning. Her mother is a Catholic with a strong faith while Celeste walked away from all that many years before. The other main character is Nathalie, her half sister who is a number of years younger.
When their mother decides that since doctors can offer no hope she will go to Nicula in Romania for a miracle cure, the two daughters fly out with her even though Celeste does not for a minute believe it will do any good as she does not believe in miracles.
Basic differences in outlook create tension between mother and daughter, as well as at times between the sisters. This tension keeps the reader hoping for one outcome, while suspecting it may turn out otherwise.
The reader is also given an insight into family dynamics, as the story reverts back at times to the days when Nathalie was a baby, a child, a teenager and Celeste’s relationship with her stepfather Lionel before he left.
The prose is elegant, spare and maintains a tension that involves the reader in the plot and the lives of the characters. So why didn’t I absolutely love this book? A couple of reasons. Even though the author attempted to make Celeste sympathetic by showing her care and mothering of her sister at various times, it didn’t quite work for me. I found Celeste to be a calculating and an unsympathetic character, harbouring bitterness. It is testament to the skill of the author and the story that I kept reading while not being enamoured of the main character.
As for Celeste’s decision at the end of the novel, it left me shaking my head in stunned disbelief and muttering, ‘Are you kidding? How could she?’ That simply shows you how involved I was in the story that it evoked such a reaction. However it also showed me Celeste and I were coming from a vastly different outlook and different mother daughter relationship. For me this ending tended to spoil the book a little. However I am aware others may well react differently to Celeste and to her outlook and decision.
This story of a Celeste, a forty nine year old childless woman, whose mother, Patricia, is diagnosed with motor neurone disease, had me interested from the beginning. Her mother is a Catholic with a strong faith while Celeste walked away from all that many years before. The other main character is Nathalie, her half sister who is a number of years younger.
When their mother decides that since doctors can offer no hope she will go to Nicula in Romania for a miracle cure, the two daughters fly out with her even though Celeste does not for a minute believe it will do any good as she does not believe in miracles.
Basic differences in outlook create tension between mother and daughter, as well as at times between the sisters. This tension keeps the reader hoping for one outcome, while suspecting it may turn out otherwise.
The reader is also given an insight into family dynamics, as the story reverts back at times to the days when Nathalie was a baby, a child, a teenager and Celeste’s relationship with her stepfather Lionel before he left.
The prose is elegant, spare and maintains a tension that involves the reader in the plot and the lives of the characters. So why didn’t I absolutely love this book? A couple of reasons. Even though the author attempted to make Celeste sympathetic by showing her care and mothering of her sister at various times, it didn’t quite work for me. I found Celeste to be a calculating and an unsympathetic character, harbouring bitterness. It is testament to the skill of the author and the story that I kept reading while not being enamoured of the main character.
As for Celeste’s decision at the end of the novel, it left me shaking my head in stunned disbelief and muttering, ‘Are you kidding? How could she?’ That simply shows you how involved I was in the story that it evoked such a reaction. However it also showed me Celeste and I were coming from a vastly different outlook and different mother daughter relationship. For me this ending tended to spoil the book a little. However I am aware others may well react differently to Celeste and to her outlook and decision.
August 22, 2013
PILGRIMAGE is not just a story of a woman dying of motor neurone disease believing she will be cured if she attends a holy grotto in Romania; it is also a close look at the intricacies of mother-daughter and sister-sister relationships. Celeste is a doctor and she does not share the faith that her mother has about a cure. Celeste is annoyed that her mother refuses to start treatment because the mother is so certain of a cure. Celeste dismisses the idea of travelling half way around the world to a remote village in Romania for the miracle to occur as a wild goose chase. Nathalie, however, has greater empathy than her sister and is more laid back and willing to go with the flow. She agrees to take her mother on the trip and Celeste falls into line agrees to go with them just so she can pick up the pieces when it all goes wrong. The trip ultimately becomes more than just accompanying their increasingly debilitated mother across Romania. Each of the sisters has to look inwardly at issues they have been refusing to admit even to themselves. They also have to look as long squashed issues regarding Nathalie’s father. Why did Celeste lose her faith? Why can’t Nathalie commit to one man? Will their mother receive the miracle she expects? Not all answers are immediately found or revealed but the tensions within the story are maintained and kept me engrossed. I didn’t like the character of Celeste, I found her to be bitter, unsympathetic and selfish. I don’t know why I was shocked at what she did at the end of the book because it fitted her whole uncaring personality. Perhaps I am being unfair to her – but it is not something I would have done. Overall PILGRIMAGE was very thought provoking and I will be looking up Jacinta Halloran’s first book Dissection to read.
January 14, 2017
Having just read and thoroughly enjoyed The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose, this novel was somewhat of a let down. I felt like I have heard, seen or read the story many, many times and it all seemed a bit clichéd to me. Mother receives life-threatening diagnosis (MND) and wants to travel to a place in Romania that is similar to Lourdes to see if she can receive divine intervention and a miracle cure. Eldest daughter Celeste is a doctor and opposes the trip as she comes from the rational, scientific perspective and thinks it’s a waste of time but she and younger sister Nathalie accompany her anyhow as it’s a nice opportunity for them to spend time together and who knows how much time Mum has left. It all just sounded too familiar. I noticed the author is also a doctor so I am not surprised that the writing is a little stilted, often states the obvious and gives too much information leaving little to the imagination. I also don’t think the author has anything new or meaningful to say about the main issues it covered – having a loved one with a terminal illness, mother-daughter-sister relationships and other family dynamics and being childless. A fair amount of time is spent in Romania and I don’t feel we were given much insight into Romanian culture or the people either. I thought the main character Celeste was quite annoying and unlikeable which detracted from me caring much about the story, the characters and what happens to them. Just OK from me. I don’t recommend it.
June 21, 2023
Good illustration of a relationship between a grown daughter and her mother, with insets from childhood and insights into one daughter's thoughts. The woman diagnosed with motor-neurone disease is accompanied by her two daughters on a pilgrimage to a place of visitations where those suffering ill health are cured.
March 5, 2023
I rolled my eyes a lot at Celeste, but I'd love to read a book about Patricia's side of the story.
January 20, 2016
Pilgrimage. It seems rather a quaint, old-fashioned sort of word in our mostly secular world, doesn’t it? Over on my travel blog I make jocular references to the pilgrimages The Spouse and I make as tourists: as ArtLovers, LitLovers, MusicLovers and ScienceLovers. We visit the resting place or monuments of our heroes in these categories or we hunt out their places of residence or inspiration, as if by some osmosis we can connect with the genius of these people that we admire long after they are dead and in spite of the kitsch commercialism which often surrounds the site. We pay homage to their work and enjoy the sense of ‘being there’.
But real pilgrimage has religious associations. For Muslims there is the Hajj, which from the TV images I’ve seen look noisy and frighteningly chaotic, but friends who’ve done it came back from the experience spiritually refreshed and with a sense of completion about a religious obligation. Christian pilgrimages conjure up images of the faithful plodding along a dusty road somewhere in Spain or Italy, and this too can lead to a sense of serenity and renewed purpose in life, as described by Tony Kevin in Walking the Camino (also published by Scribe).
Jacinta Halloran’s new book Pilgrimage is about the kind of pilgrimage where believers kneel quietly in prayer in a grove or grotto where there has been a visitation of Jesus, Mary or a saint. These pilgrimages always seem to take place somewhere remote but always picturesque. (I’m not aware of any visitations happening in dull suburbs, train stations, supermarkets or on the factory floor). The novel is Halloran’s second, and it’s very satisfying reading, every bit as good as the highly acclaimed Dissection. (See my review).
I liked it because it explores all kinds of moral ambiguities: it would make an excellent choice for book groups because it offers so much to think and talk about. Celeste is a middle-aged paediatrician with a firmly held secular-scientific view of the world who is suddenly confronted by her mother’s desire to make a pilgrimage to Romania, seeking a miracle cure for her terminal illness. Her mother is a devout Catholic, and she believes that by travelling to the (fictional) village of Nicula, she will be saved from an awful death from motor neurone disease.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/09/11/pi...
But real pilgrimage has religious associations. For Muslims there is the Hajj, which from the TV images I’ve seen look noisy and frighteningly chaotic, but friends who’ve done it came back from the experience spiritually refreshed and with a sense of completion about a religious obligation. Christian pilgrimages conjure up images of the faithful plodding along a dusty road somewhere in Spain or Italy, and this too can lead to a sense of serenity and renewed purpose in life, as described by Tony Kevin in Walking the Camino (also published by Scribe).
Jacinta Halloran’s new book Pilgrimage is about the kind of pilgrimage where believers kneel quietly in prayer in a grove or grotto where there has been a visitation of Jesus, Mary or a saint. These pilgrimages always seem to take place somewhere remote but always picturesque. (I’m not aware of any visitations happening in dull suburbs, train stations, supermarkets or on the factory floor). The novel is Halloran’s second, and it’s very satisfying reading, every bit as good as the highly acclaimed Dissection. (See my review).
I liked it because it explores all kinds of moral ambiguities: it would make an excellent choice for book groups because it offers so much to think and talk about. Celeste is a middle-aged paediatrician with a firmly held secular-scientific view of the world who is suddenly confronted by her mother’s desire to make a pilgrimage to Romania, seeking a miracle cure for her terminal illness. Her mother is a devout Catholic, and she believes that by travelling to the (fictional) village of Nicula, she will be saved from an awful death from motor neurone disease.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/09/11/pi...
December 10, 2012
Jacinta Halloran's new novel, Pilgrimage, follows the tale of Celeste, a forty-nine year old paediatrician with an avid belief in science and medicine, but little else. When her deeply devout mother is diagnosed with a motor-neuron disease and decides to travel with her daughters to Nicula, a small town in Romania that has become known for miracle healings, she is forced to confront her own life and beliefs.
Sky interviewed Jacinta Halloran for The Book Club on 8 November 2012. Pilgrimage is out now through Scribe.
Sky interviewed Jacinta Halloran for The Book Club on 8 November 2012. Pilgrimage is out now through Scribe.
March 11, 2015
An engaging novel, exploring a number of different themes.. religious, family relationship, childlessness, Celeste, tho older, sensible, paediatrician daughter and her more flighty younger sister (Nathalie) agree to accompany their mother on a pilgrimage to Romania after she has been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease.
The mother lives in hope, the more pragmatic Celeste finds it hard to be positive and supportive. Celeste has time to reflect and confront her own doubts about her marriage, her poor relationship with her stepfather, her annoyance with her younger sister and her with her mother's faith.
The mother lives in hope, the more pragmatic Celeste finds it hard to be positive and supportive. Celeste has time to reflect and confront her own doubts about her marriage, her poor relationship with her stepfather, her annoyance with her younger sister and her with her mother's faith.
March 2, 2013
I haven't read a book for a long time that has had me so involved with the characters. The mother/daughter relationships (of both daughters...Celeste and Nathalie)were achingly close to home. It shows that we all have our imperfections and probably we are all in need of counseling at one time or another, but some of us work our own way through life's difficulties. An excellent and thought provoking read.
December 11, 2012
Bitterly disappointed in this novel. Contrived characters and flat writing.
August 10, 2013
This book was awful. Talk about labouring a point. Yawn.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews