Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain
Andrew McCarthy
In the first place Andrew is divorced from Sam's Mother.
This is a picaresque novel in which nineteen-year-old Sam joins his middle-aged (58) father on Andrew's Second Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage in Northern Spain. The memoir is told from Andrew's point of view. Hearing about it from Sam would be revealing. In part Andrew hopes to establish an adult relationship with his child on this walk.
The Bruce Trail has end to enders as does the Appalachian Trail and now the Trans Canada Trail and Pacific Ridge Trail. Chaucer's Pilgrims in Canterbury Tales go from pub to pub about 6 miles apart. The hikers on the afore-mentioned trails go backpacking in more primitive conditions. The Camino is a religious pilgrimage in part supported by monasteries and churches along the way. Since the trail has some forty daily sections and sufficient pilgrims an entire industry has developed in supplying their needs and wants. Memorabilia being only a part of the business. Rather than stay in the dormitories provided Andrew stays at commercial inns. What kind of marks he leaves behind as he rests his elevated dogs against the walls....
Sam's is obviously not a religious pilgrimage. His language is X-Rated. The pair compare Andrew's druggy past and Sam's present encounters. Sam smokes. Modern day urban teens lack the kind of chores their country cousins had to get out of bed early to perform. Rather than lay abed until 10 AM it would make sense to me to get up early and walk in the cool of the day and take a siesta during the heat of the day as the locals do. Mad dogs and Englishmen stay out in the noon day sun. When I travelled by RV I often left before dawn to beat the heat, city traffic, and winds that often developed later in the day. Early to bed and early to rise. Bad habits are hard to break.
As the pair wind down their travels they meet more and more fellow pilgrims including one who taxis from rest stop to rest stop. Bikers seem to think the pathway is theirs and fail to ride nearby roads. Sam blunders into those roadways plugged into music and oblivious to danger.
The final days are marked by day hikers and tourists. Overworked attendants churlish and rude. The final arrival is anti-climatic most of the rites of passage no longer possible due to overuse. Attendance at the Cathedral is overbooked.
Sam is a bit of a klutz whose school experience was marked by learning difficulties. He is late to bed and slow to rise and has a nicotine habit. As much as I'd have liked to have heard about the pilgrimage from Sam's perspective his authoring them seems unlikely.
