Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North by Rachel Joyce

Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North by Rachel Joyce is the final part in the Harold Fry trilogy. It follows The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which was published so long ago I haven’t even reviewed it on the blog, and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy.

Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North was published last week. As Rachel Joyce is a local author, I went along to a book event at Waterstones two days before publication and got hold of my copy slightly early.

Maureen Fry is a very tiny little book. I must admit, when I saw it, my heart sank a bit. As I read a lot, I’m always quite aware of value for money in my reading. I like a long book! I was in two minds about whether to buy it. But then Rachel Joyce read a couple of pages out loud, and I was sold. It was just a little thing about Maureen at a service station, but there was so much love, loss, sadness, anger and frustration in those pages, that I knew I needed to buy the book.

Harold Fry was a publishing phenomenon and was never meant to be part of a trilogy. But after The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, Rachel Joyce knew she needed to tell Maureen’s story too. Apparently, she wrote four different versions and none of them were right. But this version is perfect.

Maureen and Harold have aged in real time, so are in their 70s at the time of Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North. Like Harold, Maureen sets out on a pilgrimage. Her pilgrimage is by car, yet is as challenging in its way as Harold’s pilgrimage on foot. As she travels, Maureen has a lot of time to think and reflect. She thinks about Harold, her parents, her childhood and everything she has lost. She has always felt like an outsider and, as a woman in her 70s, she feels out of place in a world she no longer understands.

The book is set in Covid times, so Maureen also has to contend with masks, social distancing and one-way systems around shops.

Maureen isn’t the most likeable character. She is grumpy and a bit selfish, but I really felt for her. This is such a moving and beautiful book about something which should be very simple

Was it too short? No, it wasn’t. It was perfect.

Can you read Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North without reading The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry first? Not really. Although a separate story, the two are very closely related. If you’ve read Harold Fry and Queenie Hennessy, you definitely need to finish the trilogy with Maureen Fry.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry has been made into a film starring Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton. It will be out next spring.

PS Much as I love Harold, Queenie and Maureen, my absolute favourite Rachel Joyce book is the brilliant Miss Benson’s Beetle.