A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781594631498)

In medieval times, a pilgrimage gave the average Joe his only break from the daily grind. For Gideon Lewis-Kraus, it promises a different kind of escape. Determined to avoid the fear and self-sacrifice that kept his father, a gay rabbi, closeted until midlife, he has moved to anything-goes Berlin. But the surfeit of freedom there has begun to paralyze him, and when a friend extends a drunken invitation to join him on an ancient pilgrimage route across Spain, Lewis-Kraus packs his bag, grateful for the chance to wake each morning with a sense of direction.

Irreverent, moving, hilarious, and thought-provoking, A Sense of Direction is Lewis-Kraus's dazzling riff on the perpetual war between discipline and desire, and its attendant casualties. Across three pilgrimages and many hundreds of miles, he completes an idiosyncratic odyssey to the heart of a family mystery and a human dilemma: How do we come to terms with what has been and what is--and find a way forward, with purpose?

Author: Gideon Lewis-Kraus
ISBN-10: 1594631492
ISBN-13: 9781594631498
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Language: English
Published: 05/07/2013
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.50w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 06/23/2013 pg. 28