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.
