Synopsis

An Accidental Pilgrim is a memoir that recounts my experiences as a secular retired physicist, an American woman of Argentinian birth and Jewish heritage, also a widow, who embarks on a hike along the arduous trails of El Camino de Santiago, in northwestern Spain. Although I set out on this journey on a lark, at the prodding of three of my women friends, along the way I found myself revisiting scenes from my childhood in Argentina that include the early and sudden loss of my mother. This single journey becomes a memoir of many previous journeys; my departure, as a young woman, for the United States; the outlier feelings during my years as a graduate student there; my frequent travels with my husband of forty-five years and later with my children, as well as the last journeys before my husband’s death. The memoir is written in lyrical prose, alternating with poems and including photographs and other visual elements. As I walk, climbing and descending for two weeks through ever-changing landscapes, I begin to understand not only the depths of my underlying grief denial, but I discover that my sorrow and my insecurities as an outsider are also the source of the many joys I find in the world. My meditations turn subtly into a kind of prayer.  In the end, the journey doesn’t so much change who I am as a person, as it allows me, even at an advanced age, to grow into a more creative, compassionate, intensely alive human being.

Read here a small excerpt from the beginning of the book.