Rachel Joyce's first novel, "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" was very sweet without being schmaltzy, which is very difficult to do. Harold is recently retired and he and his all but estranged wife, Maureen, live a quiet and dull existence. Maureen blames Harold for their son David breaking off contact with them years earlier. Harold just tries to stay out of Maureen's way. Then one day Harold gets a letter from Queenie, a lady he worked with years earlier. She is dying of cancer, in a hospice 600 miles away. Harold writes a return letter and walks to the mailbox to post it, but instead he just keeps walking and decides as long as he walks, Queenie will live. It was touching and poignant.
On an unrelated note: September 25 marks the anniversary of William Faulkner's birth in 1897. Someday I might even open the Folio Society limited edition of the "Sound and the Fury" that I bought :)
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