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.

"Thoughtful and refreshingly unpretentious...[H]er insights continue to resonate for days after you've finished reading." Washington Post

"A haunting, beautiful book about mourning, loss and rediscovery...rich in detail and sweetly concise." Relevant

In the spirit of Kathleen Norris and Anne Lamott, Kerry Egan describes her journey from grief to faith in this candid, spiritually profound account of her pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, the medieval pilgrim route through Northern Spain.

Kerry Egan, a student at Harvard Divinity School, became a pilgrim at the age of twenty-five, a year after the death of her father. Watching her father die had shattered the image of God Egan grew up with and undermined the theology she studied in school; she embarked on her pilgrimage full of hope and dread at the same time.

"Fumbling is the moving journal of Egan's experiences as she and her boyfriend traveled from the Pyrenees in southern France through the valleys of Navarra and westward through Spain to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, said to contain the remains of Saint James. The idea of pilgrimage rests on the belief that in some places the Divine is especially available to human beings and that the journey itself--the time spent as a pilgrim--is transformative, cleansing, and purifying. Egan was well versed in theories about grieving and the purpose of a pilgrimage, but it was through walking eight or ten hours a day that she first began to understand what grief really was and to recognize God's presence in everyday people and places.

With humor and unabashed honesty, Egan records her struggles to deal with muddy roads, blistering heat, and grouchy moods. She describes fellow pilgrims of many nationalities, the humble abodes that provide them shelter, and the beautiful, often challenging, landscape. Each incident, encounter, and hard-won mile shapes her internal journey. The repetitiveness of walking frees herto meditate for long periods, the rhythm of her breathing awakens an awareness of the connections of breath, life, and God so central to the teachings of Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and the most unlikely events--from discovering chickens in church to the pleasure of having a pizza at a train station--remind her that prayer is as at once as simple and as profound as seeing and acknowledging the joys and beauty of life.

A story of overcoming anger and sadness and finding joy and redemption, "Fumbling illuminates the power of grief to enhance our relationship with God.

Kerry Egan grew up in Long Island, New York, and received her B.A. from Washington and Lee University and her master’s of divinity from Harvard University Divinity School. While at Harvard she worked as a nursing-home ombudsman, a chaplain intern at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and a research assistant at Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions. She lives in Iowa with her travel companion and now husband, Alex.