FUMBLING: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago

While a student at Harvard Divinity School, Egan found herself immobilized by grief at the death of her father. Almost on a whim, she decided to walk the Camino de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage route through northern Spain. The narrative loosely follows the chronology of her journey, and she records many of the trip's details, such as coping with the heat, staying in crowded refugios and dealing with the quirks of local residents. But the book is more than mere travelogue. Egan uses various events on the Camino as catalysts to explore such disparate topics as the history of the cult of relics, how she accidentally discovered breathing meditation and her own feelings of anger, sadness and guilt over her father's death. Indeed, when Egan embraces the essay form, particularly when she shares her moments of confusion and weakness on the journey, her writing is confident, sharp and engaging. By contrast, when she ventures into elements of fiction—such as dialogue and description—the writing often becomes strained. Nevertheless, Egan's effective combining of historical and theological musings with personal experience makes for a satisfying account of the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of religious pilgrimage. (Sept. 21)