The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy

Rachel Joyce, the author, said that The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy isn't a sequel - or a prequel to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. She said, "What I have written is a book that sits alongside Harold Fry. They really should come that way - her in the passenger seat, him in the driver's seat. Side by side."

Reading thru the reviews on goodreads.com, I noticed that some people read Love Song first and then went on to read Harold Fry second. Some had read Harold Fry first, but after reading Love Song, went back to read Harold Fry again because they couldn't remember enough of the details. While I think that either book can work as a standalone, I'm glad that I read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry first... and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy several years later. It worked fine that way for me.

I read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry in November 2013. Books and Beer Club reads inspirational books to be discussed each November and we basically selected this title because it had "pilgrim" in the title. November - Thanksgiving - Pilgrims. Get it?

While Harold Fry was an uplifting book (and inspired me to walk from the south of the US to the north - along roads, though, not along anything as challenging as the Appalachian Trail), The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy had me thinking more introspectively. 

In Harold Fry, Queenie writes Harold a letter, telling him that she is dying. She lets him know where she is. He writes back and tells her "to wait." When Queenie learns that Harold is walking from the south of England, where they had been co-workers, to the north of England, where she is residing in hospice, she starts to think about all the things she feels she needs to tell him. She's been carrying a big secret from Harold for over 20 years. She needs to unburden herself as much as she wants him to know the truth.

Rachel Joyce gives us the chance to become familiar with several of the other patients St. Bernadine's Hospice as well as the nuns who take care of them. At times, they provide some much needed comic relief. At other times, it gives us a chance to discover how others can achieve peace at the end of their lives. While my familiarity with hospice is quite different from where Queenie finds herself living out her final days, the characters did remind me of some of the patients living in the nursing home where my father spend his nearly final days. You get the sense that for many of these folks, their final days are their best days yet.

The novel is complete with happy recollections along with the sad. I started thinking about "love at first sight," about what it means to be ordinary and how important it is to find peace before we die.

I'd highly recommend this book to anyone except for those who might have trouble reading a novel set in hospice.