The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Joyce's first novel, was an unlikely bestseller. It tells the story of a retired man who, hearing that a woman he used to work with is dying, sets off on foot to post a letter to her. Instead he keeps walking, realizing he must deliver his letter to Queenie in person, while Maureen, his wife, frets at home.
Harold loves his wife, not Queenie, yet still their work relationship was close and Maureen disapproved. In The Love Song of Queenie Hennessy, Joyce gives us Queenie's story. It turns out that she, in fact, has loved Harold for years. Now Joyce completes the powerful trilogy.
In the background of each novel stands the tragic suicide of Harold and Maureen's son, David. He has now been dead for 30 years, yet Maureen has not stopped mourning. As if Harold walking all the way to see Queenie one last time were not bad enough, Maureen has learned that Queenie had built a garden in tribute to David, which has now become a small tourist attraction. Maureen decides she must finally visit that garden, and so she sets off on her own in a car one morning.
Joyce paints a picture of an introverted, easily offended woman uncomfortable around strangers. And so her pilgrimage is much different that her husband's. Her trials are many, yet she ultimately finds the garden, finds David, finds a friend and finds a way to repair her broken life and appreciate her loving husband.
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