The Little Pilgrim
Elizabeth Bailey
“I drank a beer, smoked two cigarettes too quickly, played solitaire and told the waiter my grandmother had taught me. I am not sure he understood my broken words. The seminary had a midnight curfew which sat on the lip of my consciousness”
Introduction written by Christine Greenaway.
The Little Pilgrim Is a sensual evocation of a young woman’s attempt to re establish a stable identity after the devastation of unforeseen betrayal, heartbreak and a near death experience.
This fractured self is mirrored by interruptions in the narrative voice, switching back and forth between 1st and 3rd person, past and present: an evocative, compelling quest on Compostella pilgrimage trails. The minutiae of the present senses are responding in real time to the vast chasm of a displaced and shattered identity - a continual attempt to make her body and mind believable and safe, while all that seems swept away and senseless yearns towards an anchor in faith.