Two Steps Forward

Two Steps Forward is a novel by the Australian writer Graeme Simsion, published in 2017.

The walk at the centre of the book is the Chemin, also known as the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrim route centuries old that finishes at Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain. Thousands of people follow it every year, some of them devout and many of them not at all, and the route goes through small villages and along busy highways alike.

Zoe is an artist from California, and she is still reeling from the sudden death of her husband when she decides on an impulse to walk the route, hoping to find some comfort in it and some direction for what comes next. Martin is an engineer from England, road-testing a cart he has designed himself and recovering from a messy divorce. The two of them set out from the same French town, neither of them certain what the future holds.

Zoe has prepared herself for the physical difficulty of the walk, but not for the other things it brings: the strangers she meets and the circumstances she ends up in force her to confront not only her recent loss but beliefs she has held for much longer. For Martin the pilgrimage is a test of his skills and his endurance, and, as he and Zoe grow closer, a test of his willingness to trust other people, and himself, again.