The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy

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Through her thoughts, we are introduced to the other residents, some very colourful and funny, some stubbornly grouchy. Joyce] manages to both add depth to an already strong work and build something new and beautiful upon it." - The A.V. Club In the hospices we talked a lot about dying. We talked, too, about my father and his own death. At the end of one meeting, the manager said to me, “You need to write this book.” I probably cried, because it had been an emotional day. But I cried also because he was right.

How did you feel when you learned that Harold would never actually read Queenie’s confession? Were you satisfied that Queenie found absolution and peace before she died? Faced by her imminent death, she writes to Harold Fry, her unrequited love, and he sets out to walk the length of England to be with her. Scared that she will not live long enough to see him, she takes up the challenge when a new volunteer at the hospice suggests that Queenie should write again; only this time she must tell Harold everything.Joyce begins the novel with Queenie’s letter and a confession to Harold: “I will confess everything, because you were right that day. There were so many things you didn’t see. There are so many things you still don’t know.” In addition to giving the novel urgency, are the letters and postcards scattered throughout the novel effective touchstones for the journeys both characters are on? Queenie is in a hospice spending her last days writing a letter to a man she worked with at a brewery in an English town . At the same time, that man , Harold Fry is on a walking journey to see her before she dies . We learn so much about Queenie in her letter - about her childhood, her days at the university where she studied the classics , her losses , her time working with Harold and how she spent her days after leaving , living in a beach house and tending her beloved sea garden.

MY THOUGHTS: I didn't want this book to end......I quite fell in love with Miss Queenie Hennessey and the other residents of the hospice. Sister Lucy said maybe she did but she was pretty sure she didn’t. Someone told us he’d had an old aunt who lived there once. And one of the volunteers said, “Oh, I know Kingsbridge. It’s in South Devon.” In this poignant parallel story to Harold's saga, acclaimed author Rachel Joyce brings Queenie Hennessy's voice into sharp focus. Setting pen to paper, Queenie makes a journey of her own, a journey that is even bigger than Harold's; one word after another, she promises to confess long-buried truths—about her modest childhood, her studies at Oxford, the heartbreak that brought her to Kingsbridge and to loving Harold, her friendship with his son, the solace she has found in a garden by the sea. And, finally, the devastating secret she has kept from Harold for all these years. The author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry hits a darker but no less compelling note ... However, the book is not without its own pleasurable uplift: a spiritual wind beneath its wings … perhaps it adds necessary ballast to the sparkling balloon of Harold's journey – and it will certainly find a grateful readership. The Guardian All of them wait for the future, with Harold holding the key to their staying alive. I was very touched by this story, the selfishness of people, the secrets we hold within our hearts, and the ability to always find hope from a life that soon will be taken from them.

Rachel Joyce

The Love Song is about living and dying with dignity, friendship, love, about regrets and acceptance, and how people have the capacity to make people who don't know them fall in love with them. We learn so much about Queenie from her letter, about her childhood, university days where she studied classics, her losses, her time with Harold and her beloved beachhouse and stunning sea garden, complete with representations of the important people in her life. Kudos, Madam Joyce, for another great piece. I hope others take as much away from this piece as I did. I’ll be sure to look for more of your work soon. Queenie created her sea garden “to atone for the terrible wrong I had done to a man I loved.” She writes, “Sometimes you have to do something with your pain because otherwise it will swallow you.” Do you feel she shared any blame in David’s suicide? Do you think she should have carried this burden for twenty years? Sister Catherine passed several brown envelopes, forwarded, to a Scotsman known as Mr. Henderson. There was a card for the new young woman. (She arrived yesterday. I don’t know her name.) There is a big man they call the Pearly King, and he had another parcel though I have been here a week and I haven’t yet seen him open one. The blind lady, Barbara, received a note from her neighbor—­Sister Catherine read it out—­spring is coming, it said. The loud woman called Finty opened a letter informing her that if she scratched off the foil window, she would discover that she’d won an exciting prize.

That night I barely slept. I had Queenie’s words, her stories, spinning in my head. I didn’t know if any of those words made sense, but I did know that I was at the beginning of something and that I would have to stay with it and find the whole story. In the morning, when I looked again at The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, it occurred to me that in truth I’d had the idea of writing from Queenie’s perspective long before—I had written one small piece, that taste of her voice, in the Harold Fry chapter “Queenie and the Present.” I’d had the idea and I hadn’t quite seen it. The reader only really got a glimpse of Queenie in the first novel, as Harold was somewhat clueless about her true intentions. However, the focus on Madam Hennessy in this piece is both refreshing and essential to put all the pieces together. Queenie is quite a complex woman, full of white lies and causal deceit, though never a malicious being. Her ability to love is apparent throughout, as her compassion creates a tether to Harold, though never blurring the workplace-personal lines. Queenie’s admissions in her letter to Harold are highly important to the larger narrative, though it is only one part of many that will impact the reader. This book moved me to tears, made me laugh, made me think about me relationship with my mother, with my grandmothers, with my sons.The nuns are kind and helpful, especially Sister Lucy, who attends to Queenie with care. Between reminiscences, she reminds us of her condition, which is a cancer that has destroyed much of her jaw and her speech. Since finishing the two books, I often found myself wistfully wishing for another glimpse into Harold and Queenie’s world. Jamie Klingler, Stylist Joyce] manages to both add depth to an already strong work and build something new and beautiful upon it.” — The A.V. Club If you loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry you'll be thrilled with this sequel. Fabulous magazine