Fumbling: A Journey of Love, Adventure, and Renewal on the Camino de Santiago

by Kerry Egan

 
A year after her father died, Kerry Egan walked through the fields, mountains, and villages of northern Spain on a medieval pilgrimage road called the Camino de Santiago. Fumbling is the moving journal of her experiences as she and her boyfriend traveled from the Pyrenees in southern France through the valleys of Navarra and westward through the dramatic Picos de Europa of northern Spain to the Cathedral of the Santiago de Compostela, said to contain the remains of Saint James.  With humor and unabashed honesty, Egan records her struggles to deal with muddy paths, blistering heat, and the miles and miles of open road. She describes her fellow travelers from around the world, the humble villas that provide them shelter, and the beautiful, and often challenging, landscape of northern Spain. Each incident, encounter, and hard-won mile shapes her internal journey toward accepting the loss of her father, and the most unlikely events--from discovering chickens in church to a fist fight with an ATM machine to the joy of eating a pizza in a train station--reveal in fresh ways the many faces of love and the mysteries of grief, hope and faith.
 
Both an engaging and entertaining armchair travel adventure and a beautiful and deeply moving portrait of a spiritual transformation, Fumbling is a journey no reader will ever forget.
 

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Travel, Religion, Spain, Spirituality, Inspirational

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

My library has a hold queue on the author's recent book on being a hospice chaplain, so I downloaded the sample of this earlier book of hers; turns out I purchased it by mistake. Could've returned it, but decided that was a "sign" to just buy it and read it.

Now that I've finished it, the "sign" was to be more careful! Author comes off as very self-absorbed here - there are better books on the Camino experience itself, which features almost as a backdrop here.

Perhaps she's matured into a decent clergy woman? We'll see in a few weeks.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Sister in Law wrote this. Buy it and Read it.

[Quo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read several compelling accounts portraying personal experiences in making a Camino to Santiago in Galicia, NW Spain but Fumbling: A Journey of Love, Adventure & Renewal on the Camino to Santiago by Kerry Egan is not among them. In fact, any hint of love, adventure & spiritual renewal seems spliced in after the fact, almost making this book resemble an overdue term paper forged together in an attempt to to deal with a deadline. Oddly enough, the book, which apparently began as an essay, doesn't represent a self-published work but was published by Doubleday, though any editorial assistance with the manuscript seems to have been negligible at best. The prose is often exceedingly vernacular and laced with profanities, odd for a student at the Harvard Divinity School.

Every pilgrimage, not just those to Santiago, is different and suggestions of prescribed "authenticity" can be misguided. However, my reading of this book conveys an author who not only did not really want to contend with a manuscript but who did not really wish to be a pilgrim, i.e. to cope with the incidental hazards, uncertainties, daily physical rigors & the occasional lack of comfort of walking at least a portion of the 500 mile (800k) pilgrimage trail from St. Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago. (There are alternate trails to Santiago from various other starting points, including one in Portugal but the 500 mile "French Way" is the path most subscribed to.)

Mostly absent is any description of the remarkable & architecturally diverse churches one encounters in towns & villages along the way, places that continue to act as way-stations for pilgrims & others. Almost completely absent are the usual intersections with other pilgrims, each with a different life story and reason for making the long trek to Santiago in NW Spain. Perhaps, this is because the author made the journey with her boyfriend, who had even less of an idea about the nature of a pilgrimage and their squabbles make up a good portion of this tale. That said, Kerry Egan's beau often is called upon to carry her pack as well as his own, frequently encourages the author to renew putting one boot in front of the other and even rants at her when Ms. Egan wants to complete the last few kilometers via cab. (She had envisioned arriving at Santiago on a cool, overcast day and it turned out to be a rather warm, sunny one.)

What is listed as the primary motivation is the not too distant death of Kerry Egan's father and the suggestion of some behavior on her part prior to his demise that she now regrets. This could have made the hoped-for search for transformation through the process of walking a long & occasionally arduous pilgrimage trail an interesting & even a potentially riveting study but this never develops. When the process of walking becomes tiring & uncomfortable, a train or a bus is enlisted for long stretches and then the couple seeks lodging in 3 star hotels rather than the usual refugios or albergues (pilgrim hostels) where one normally develops a sense of shared journey and exchanges information with fellow pilgrims. However, this pattern is sometimes broken when they stay at opulent 5 star paradors for days at a time, spending $80 for laundry instead of cleaning their own socks & other clothing, something that most pilgrims consider part of the pilgrimage ritual. Even when the couple occasionally does stay in pilgrim lodgings, they opt for a private room to wall themselves off from fellow pilgrims, something that would entail leaving the author's "comfort zone". There are frequent longings for Pizza Hut excursions, this in areas of Spain known for distinctive, nourishing cuisine. Ultimately, even the post-pilgrimage conclusions in Fumbling:A Journey of Love, Adventure & Renewal on the Camino de Santiago seem insincere & grafted on, with God's love coming through the love of her boyfriend, someone who calls all women "girls".

Alas, there are ultimately many formats to making a pilgrimage to Santiago. I personally encountered a woman who had fallen & broken an arm but after a day in hospital was again en route and also a man of 85 walking the entire path from the French starting point, across the Pyrenees and eventually headed toward Santiago, at his own slow, solitary but determined pace. There are also countless tales of individual approaches to walking the trails, detailing the experiences of those in pursuit of the pilgrimage paths to Santiago. Some pilgrimages are more overtly religious than others and many are open-ended, with the goal to be determined gradually during the course of the long walk. The best description that I have encountered of the rationale for making a Camino to Santiago comes from Conrad Rudolf in his Pilgrimage to the End of the World:

Pilgrimage sites, including the one to Santiago, are not the goal. From the medieval point of view,the pilgrimage was not just the physical arrival at a holy place but the experience of progressing toward that destination, an experience that was as much a part of the phenomenon as the holy place itself. Pilgrimages are not vacations or tours with a succession of stops for photo opportunities; they force the pilgrim to participate in a deep & sustained integration of past & present, a dynamic that causes the pilgrim to be a part of one of the most fundamental elements of human existence. From the point of view of a modern pilgrim, the pilgrimage is an intensely interior experience within an intensely physical context, in which the journey more than than destination, is the goal.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

It could be much stronger, without all of her religious rants, but some are relevant, too, and she is a chaplain. Still, I like it, in part, because I actually walked a few miles of the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James, several years ago when I had a girlfriend up in the province of Navarra, Spain.

It's good narrative-descriptive, aside from the religious parts, and I see it as something of a guide -- to both writing and a desire to walk the whole thing one of these days. The food, water, wine, nightlife, scenery, and photo opportunities along almost all of the trek is awe-inspiring, so when it seems that walking the 500 miles, or so, works for book material for so many other authors -- and it could help shave off a few pounds -- why not?

Egan's ability to close strong upgraded her from a three to four star read from my perspective. Egan carried some tangents too long but, in the end, didn't fumble Fumbling.

[Fred · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best thing about this book is its honesty. This is not a heroic tale and at times not a very inspiring one. But it is all redeemed at the end of the book just as it is for the author. If we are annoyed with Egan so is she. It is her strength that she does not need to paper over this. Wonderfully enough, though she keep telling us that she did not have any deep revelation at the end of the journey it is there nonetheless. The more you like hearing about the Camino the more you will like the book. And while the spiritual journey is not shocking it is very real and easy to identify with.

[Josie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first heard of the Camino de Santiago from the movie, The Way, starring Martin Sheen. It fascinates me. This book captured the essence of the Camino and why people travel that long road. I guess I related to the author because my father passed away recently and I could understood what she was going through. This books was more about what the author was feeling while she walked rather than a travelogue. I truly enjoyed it and walking the Camino is now on my bucket list.

[Lesley Janke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this reflection about walking the Camino Santiego and her discoveries of grief and love that came to her along her pilgrim route. Thoughtful and very hard to put down... I laughed and I cried. And maybe someday I'll get a chance to walk this pilgrimmage, and follow in the footsteps of thousands who have walked it.

[Mary Wall · Rating 4 out of 5]

While there are better books about walking the Camino, I think this book was meant to be exactly what it is: the authors EXPERIENCE while on the Camino. As another reviewer stated, the Camino is just a backdrop for the book. As someone who plans to walk the Camino, I found it a useful part of the reading I’ve done on The Way. Everyone has their own experience with it. This is Kerry Egan’s.

[Cheryl Kaye · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not so much a book about walking the Camino, as a self-indulgent whining overly long essay about re-finding religion......and rambling about how much it confused you as a kid.

I think her boyfriend deserves a medal, and I hope she realises how lucky she is/was.

This book has very little to do with the Camino. Don't pick it up if you are looking for a story about journeying along the Camino; the people you meet, and the places you see.

I am sure there are people who will like this (if you have an interest in religious ramblings) but it just didn't work for me.

[Louisa Keys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having an acquaintance walking The Way recently and posting her progress on FaceBook rekindled the fascination I have had for many years of making the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage. I found Ms. Egan's recounting of her experience lacking in details of The Way itself, and the community that others have mentioned that seems to form around the pilgrims, but perhaps her extended grief over her father's passing did not allow that to be of importance to her; this was her pilgrimage.

[Sierra SJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a huge fan of theology or spiritual discovery, but I did enjoy this book, with Egan's honesty and true depictions of grief. I also found myself interested by a few of the passages where she shares history and local myths from the Camino, just because I've never even heard of some of that aspect of the pilgrimage.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyone's road to God is different. I would love to walk the Camino and this is one story of a woman's trek. She was certainly not a purist in my thoughts of a pilgrim, lol. She had some wonderful hotels and meals and there was little about the spirituality between her and other pilgrims...but to each their own. Blessings.

[Sigrid Stillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Kerry

I started your book as a heads up for walking the Camino this summer. Much more than I ever expected, your story rang real with me every painful joyful step of the way. It was a heart song. Thank you.

[larry lauber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book

I read this as a recommendation from my friend. I really felt her journey and it was a real thought provoking read

[Hanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Really clear, beautiful writing & the perfect length. Great background info on the camino paired with one modern woman's experience walking it.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read several Camino de Santiago experience books, and this one is the best so far. It's a story of how the author went through grief and processes her doubts about God while walking the Camino.

[Vickie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read several books by those who walked the Camino Francés. This is the first that chronicles a spiritual and emotional impact.

[Ray Foy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Camino de Santiago is an ancient pilgrimage route across northern Spain some 500 miles long. Many books have been written by people who’ve made the journey and I’ve read a few of them. Fumbling is an inspiring, intelligent, and emotionally honest addition to that body of work.

Kerry Egan was a Harvard Divinity School student in the late 1990s and had spent the last few years providing care to her grievously ill father. When he died, it left her with a “normal” life she wasn’t prepared to deal with. Though a Divinity student, she was more religious scholar than faithful Catholic, and had at best, serious doubts concerning God’s nature and existence. Crippled with guilt over feeling like she had not treated her father well enough in his last days, and “sleepwalking” through school, one day she serendipitously came upon the idea of a Camino pilgrimage. The idea grew until it possessed her, and she made the decision to take the journey with her boyfriend, Alex.

So Ms Egan’s Camino pilgrimage starts as many contemporary accounts do, with the author being in spiritual-emotional crisis. Usually there is an Inciting Incident that throws the narrator into such a turmoil, they decide to abandon the common world for a while and become a pilgrim. For Ms Egan, the incident was the death of her father, echoing Cheryl Strayed’s incitement by her mother’s death (Wild). Ms Egan’s journey is more religiously grounded, however, (that being her background) where Ms Strayed’s (on the Pacific Crest Trail) was more “church-in-the-wilderness” spiritual. In both cases, the reader is granted a very honest and eloquent recounting of a personal journey.

Ms Egan’s account of the Camino describes it more verbosely than the other’s I’ve read, though it is certainly more than a travelogue. While she shares with us the challenge of elevation changes, walking through miles of mud, enduring fierce heat with no shade in sight, and the annoyance of dogs (which seems to occur in most all Camino accounts) and eccentric residents, these support her real story. That story, of course, is of her spiritual journey and that’s what makes any Camino story inspirational. Ms Egan does an excellent job on that count.

Having a Catholic scholar background, Ms Egan highlights her story with short discourses on pilgrimage, relics, iconography, and the requisite history of the Camino. I found these sections interesting, rather than distracting, and done in a way that highlighted her journey. We never forget that she is an emotional mess, and the scholarly arc never overrides her depiction of her spiritual progress.

She presents that progress on several levels. There’s the physical journey, her dealing with grief, her discovery of God’s presence, and her developing relationship with Alex. The structure of her book reflects that progression in sections appropriately titled from “Fumbling” to “Wonder.” The titles are accurate in describing her progress. In fact, my main criticism is that she should have listed them on a Contents page.

There is much to like about Fumbling. It is one of my favorite accounts of the Camino and of personal journeys to enlightenment. Ms Egan’s personal tone with scholarly highlights is appealing, as are the metaphors she finds on the road (i.e., chickens in a golden cage, Pizza Hut, walking through mud). There are even metaphysical aspects of her journey that reach beyond religion—her discovery of “walking meditation,” and a couple of “soft” paranormal events. It is all done with sincerity in prose that is readable and accessible for someone seeking to learn from her experience.

Early in her book, Ms Egan says:

A pilgrimage starts the moment you pull the front door shut behind you.

That is the moment of commitment beyond which everything else is tenacity, as Robyn Davidson tells us in Tracks. Finding that moment for ourselves and pushing through to those conclusions we need is the lesson of self-discovery-through-journey books in general, and of Fumbling.

If you’re open to learning from others’ experiences, and to the possibility of enlightenment through personal pilgrimage, you’ll find much help and inspiration here.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now here is a travel memoir. In equal parts, Ms. Egan sculpts the physical contours of the experience (moments on the Camino), polishes various historical, religious, and cultural features, and places well-appointed fingerprints on the work, marking it as her own.

As she steps through her tale, she discovers a tonal rhythm of passion and peace, contemplation and celebration, which seizes the spirit of a pilgrimage that, indeed, encompasses all of these states of being. Meanwhile, her many, poetic insights brought the Camino alive to me in fresh ways, as for instance when she described walking as a process of controlled falling. All else aside, this latter fact alone endears this book to me. I love that Ms. Egan has breathed fresh life into an experience that today I recall with a lot of detail but very little feeling.

"Breathed fresh life" - what a cliché, and what a difficult feat to truly accomplish. It is not enough to simply pile up information, nor to apply alternative vocabulary. For example, another Camino memoir I read was fine enough, yet I read it almost like a nostalgia checklist (I remember this, that is familiar, yep, I've been there). Meanwhile, a third memoir resurrected the Camino as a sort of Frankenstein's monster through its overweening effort to replace greeting card sentiments with comedy club crudeness (and it wasn't even funny).

It surprised, then gratified me, to realize that this book does not go into painstaking detail about the Camino itself. Other books about this trail which I've read are very linear in this respect, to the point that 'chapters' are simply hiking days, and each section is whatever was seen and happened that day. I myself have attempted to begin a book, and by default fell into that 'tell it all, every step' rhythm, but I think Ms. Egan is onto something, here.

I think that part of what a pilgrim may want most is for the experience never to die, nor even to fade (a topic that the author touches on), and by writing in excruciating detail one might hope to build a sort of cage around the Camino so that it will always be available to gawk at without having to go very far or do very much. Yet this is a bit like believing that a rhino in a zoo is no different from a rhino in its natural habitat.

By treating a very few moments of the Camino in great detail, and leaving the rest to the imagination, Ms. Egan perceives and expresses something profound -- one is only really on the Camino while one is on the Camino, and a recreation is a counterfeit, maybe even a sort of blasphemy. The longer one spends at the zoo gazing at the rhino, the more one comes to be trapped there with the rhino in its cage. The larger lesson of the Camino is that one is always a pilgrim, always traveling, always practicing the lessons which awakened during the relatively few days that one was actually there. This, also, is a matter that Egan reflects upon, and the very structure and content of her memoir honor that recognition.

I am glad, then, that she does not try to build a one-to-one narrative map, especially considering that the time and space she saves making itty bitty paper models of every albergue and chapel frees her up to model some of the inner elements as well as some of the broader contours of the experience. Finally, it frees her to do what she did at the close of this book (and what I hope she continues to do today): keep moving.

Ms. Egan gets physical, she gets spiritual, and she gets academic, but she doesn't get pretentious, and she doesn't get in over her head. Her tale is eager yet reserved, earnest then exhausted, ornery and contrite. It walks, then it rests, but it is always on a journey. It is worthwhile joining her for that journey.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book, partially because it seems like she is trying to do too many things at once. I have walked part of the Camino, and may continue on to the finish at some point. And I have read a lot of memoirs of different people's Camino journeys. As a description of her own pilgrimage it seemed to me to be lacking, although I certainly could relate to her meltdown in the wheat fields over the heat and lack of shade. She adds in a fair amount on the history of the Camino de Santiago which I think would be helpful to someone to whom this is a new subject, but in my case I have read it all somewhere else already. To me the most interesting part was her own spiritual development along the camino, and the fact that she wrote a bit about coming back and going on with her normal life. So, I would recommend this book depending on what you are looking for. If it's to find out what being on the Camino is like as a day to day experience, not so much, but as a spiritual journey, perhaps.

[Liralen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to read this one after The Way of the Stars, not least because some of the same experiences are covered, often with slightly varying details. Take for example the story of the chickens at Santo Domingo de la Calzada -- in Sibley's version, the boy scorned the girl, and in Egan's version, vice versa; in Sibley's, the parents don't learn that their son still lives until they've been to and from Santiago, while in Egan's, they're informed while in the cathedral.)

More to the point, where Sibley mostly (initially) sought adventure, though, and a chance to get out of a rut, Egan's quest was more a path to find her way through grief. Walking the Camino didn't rid her of grief, but it let her open herself to experiencing grief and thus eventually working through it.

Egan was in divinity school when she undertook her pilgrimage, so her focus is naturally heavier on the religious details and history than it might otherwise have been. She had to learn to view her pilgrimage in her own terms and context, as integral to her experience was learning to take a step back, slow down, realise that being miserable does not mean succeeding.

"I truly wish that I had been able to do the pilgrimage in the traditional, simple, ascetic way," she says. "But that's not what I was doing. I was pushing asceticism over the line, from a healthy stripping away of the extraneous into a destructive relishing of my own pain and suffering... What is the reason behind one's asceticism? If it is to punish oneself, it contradicts its own purpose, leading you deeper into self and away from God and others" (page 119).

Egan found what she was looking for, I think, but I wonder how much that owed to not knowing, when she set out, what that was.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard the author, Kerry Egan, speak about her new book, On Living, on the radio, and was not only intrigued by the book, but also thought Egan sounded like a lovely human being--the kind of person I would like to be friends with. I requested both On Living, and Egan's earlier memoir, Fumbling, from the library and Fumbling was available first.
The book did not disappoint. I loved the parts of the book that are about Egan personally--her feelings, experiences, and reflections on her pilgrimage, what led her to it, and what she learned. I appreciate her honesty and vulnerability, and the insights into her relationship, with both her travel partner, and her father whose death precipitated her pilgrimage. I enjoyed the way Egan portrays the Camino and the Spanish countryside it crosses so vividly that I could picture the cows and fields, the mud and the few trees.
There was some information in the book I was less interested in, namely the paragraphs detailing historical information about pilgrims, relics, and other aspects of religion. But it was easy to just skip over these parts and dive back into the narrative.
I look forward to reading her newest book.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is somehow appropriate that I finished this today. I scanned Fumbling rather quickly when it first arrived. My goal was to read this along with whatever else I was reading during Lent. It has been a long journey through this book for me...grief, realization, searching, listening, seeing...perspective, not of life or situations actually changing, but my perspective of and attitude toward them.

I have a fascination with el Camino de Santiago that began while I was still in elementary school; I have not made the journey yet, but Kerry Egan's "Fumbling" has made me even more determined to do so. Her questioning of God, her anger, her guilt resonated with me through the pages of "Fumbling". As difficult as it was at times for me to read, I pushed through the pages as my Lenten Journey. Reading Ms. Egan's journey toward realization of and justification for her emotions and her feelings was enlightening. She made me laugh with some of her and Alex's observations along el Camino and cry along with her observations of the miraculous, of seeing God in and within the her daily walk.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable read - could not put it down. Though I was really only looking for a narrative on the experience of walking the Camino, I quite enjoyed the tangents the author took as she wrote about her pilgrimage. A lot of the "filler" parts (as described in others' reviews) contained quite a bit of background, history, and theory that I appreciated in order to piece the journey together and gave it more relevance to me.

Despite my being a self-proclaimed agnostic (or at the very least, non religious), it's impossible to ignore the religious reasons why so many people undertake the challenge of walking the Camino (whether only the last 100KM or the full trek). Maybe I was a little disappointed that the author did not really seem to return to "normal life" with a new sense of...something. But, I appreciate that the author was candid, kept her experience realistic and did not embellish for the sake of her writing. In the end, it's simply about wanting to do something and going out and doing it. Inspiring.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you write a travel book, you can either (Type A) know up front that you are headed off on a trip where you will write about your adventures, necessitating the having of adventures and/or the elaboration of adventures OR

(Type B) You can set off on a trip, have some amazing adventures, and then talk a publisher into letting you write a book about what happened, though you may have forgotten (i.e., have to make up) many details.

This book strikes me as Type A. Egan decided to take a trip to mourn the death of her father and write a book as she traveled. Nothing much happened. If you cut out all the spliced in essays on pilgrimages and saints and grieving, the book would be about ten pages. I liked this book just fine, but I'd been hoping for a transformational read, and it never felt like that to me. Instead, I kept wanting to shout, "Filler!" every time Egan ventured off the Camino into one tangent or another.

[Patty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Serendipity has brought the Camino de Santiago to my attention this fall. First of all, I saw the movie, The Way, with my vocation group. Then a good friend announced on Facebook that he was going to walk the Camino. Later that week, when I was in the library I found this book. I had heard of this pilgrimage before, but synchronicity helped it bubble back into my awareness.

Egan was in graduate school when she walked the Camino. I am guessing about 30 years younger than I am now. I am grateful for her story since i doubt The Way is in my future. I managed to complete a 5K walk last week, but that is the extent of my walking range.

Egan did a good job of taking her experience and relating it in a way that others could connect to it. Her knowledge of the history of the Camino was especially interesting.

I would recommend this to viewers of Martin Sheen's movie, to anyone interested in a first hand experience of the Camino and to readers of memoirs.

[Aby Go · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is altogether entertaining, informative and inspiring. Not only does she give us a vivid and visually-stimulating tour of Spain, she also includes historical and religious tidbits that help understand the purpose and history of the Pilgrimage. The book is inspiring in the sense that Egan, who admits to being an atheist, encourages us to find God and the divine in mundane things such as the sight of chickens on a roof of a cathedral, the taste sugar coated raspberries and the experience of having Pizza Hut in Léon. Fumbling is more than just a travelogue and a guide to the camino, Fumbling is the journey itself to letting go and finding the answers to big questions in life.

[Mical · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely read of one woman's pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago as she struggled with her (dis)belief in God (taking a break from working on a divinity masters from Harvard) after her father's death. During the physical toil of walking eight to ten hours a day under the hot sun with her sometimes irritating boyfriend, she comes to find that grief is a form of prayer and that one can learn to live in the present when you let go of trying to control the past.

My second Camino de Santiago memoir in as many months . . . makes me want to step out of my own familiar rhythms to seek answers in an unfamiliar country and activity.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an account of a woman's (and her boyfriend) pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago across northern Spain. She was a student at the Harvard Divinity School and grieving the death of her father when she made the trek. Her honest and introspective retelling of this journey is a must read for anyone contemplating this trip.

[Ma'lis Wendt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kerry Egan walked the Camino de Santiago a year after her father died. Her story of her pilgrimage gives the reader a very real idea of what happens on the Camino and an insight into Kerry's range of thinking during these months. Fascinating account with lots of side discussions on religion, faith, guilt, forgiveness and love.