Forward and back on the Camino

Two Steps Forward may be the title of a recently published novel by Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist, but the novel itself completes the phrase, "Two steps forward, one step back."

Simsion and Buist's two main characters and co-narrators, Martin and Zoe, are both middle-aged and newly single, he because of a nasty divorce and she because of the death of her husband. They meet while walking the Camino de Santiago, the ancient route taken by pilgrims that stretches from France across northern Spain. The way does not go smoothly, and we are not talking about the Camino. Like confused magnets, they repel, then attract, repel, then attract. They all but become lovers, then one or the other takes off alone down trail without explanation. Soon enough they meet again, only to repeat the process.

These sorts of things happen in romantic novels, but still it quickly gets old here. Fortunately the authors provide welcome diversions in the form of subplots. Martin, an engineer from Great Britain, devises a cart to carry his gear and uses his pilgrimage as a marketing tool, hoping to sell his idea to a manufacturer. He also has a teenage daughter back home entangled in an affair with a married man. The American Zoe, meanwhile, learns her husband's fatal accident may have actually been a suicide. Plus there's news she will soon become a grandmother. An international cast of supporting characters also helps keep things somewhat interesting.

Then Simsion and Buist give us an ending that helps us all but forget the on-again-off-again romantic silliness of the previous 300 pages.