Colleen O’Toole’s Restoring Joy is a warm, witty, and emotionally frank portrayal of the author’s 2019 pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. The walk parallels O’Toole’s inner journey of healing from wounds caused by a family estrangement (19-21, 35, 213). The striking cover by Hamilton, Ontario artist Deborah Finn mirrors the author’s writing in rich intimacy. Both the cover painting and the account of the walk are textured with colour, both lead through some deeply shadowed mountains, yet from the beginning (47) both seem bound for an inevitable rose-colored horizon of promise.
Considering the O Cebreiro-sized mountain of first-person Camino memoirs in English, that Restoring Joy is one of the most enjoyable reads in the genre is a significant accomplishment. O’Toole makes sure to relate experiences that will bring smiles of recognition to readers familiar with the long Spanish trail. With the author, we endure foot problems (71) and blisters (159, 199), obsess over packs and pack weight (11), meet cranky nuns (58) and snoring albergue bunkmates (108), delight in local wine and spontaneous communal meals (111, 114, 142), hurry to the next village to claim limited bed spots (what O’Toole with typical humour calls the Great Camino Bed Race, 65, 54), make the shame-inducing “should I take the bus?” decision (149), and beneath it all, experience “the flow.” The flow is the experience of meeting new people or reconnecting with Camino friends who have lagged behind or surged forward and whom one thought they might never see again (67, 77) but who somehow become a “traveling family” (83).
Some readers no doubt will come to this book fondly remembering joys and vicissitudes from their own Caminos. Should others have trouble imagining the trek, O’Toole’s clear writing brings her forty days on the popular Camino Frances to life. The author’s generous spirit shines through even her accounts of trauma, “an injury to the soul or spirit (129)” that leaves one existing “alone in a time warp (82)” unable to move forward. By sharing her adventures, we find ourselves nodding in agreement as she realizes: “No, walking is not so hard. Painful at times, but not hard. What is hard is changing [a] life” (161). In the end, she writes, “the cure for trauma is to live” (238).
O’Toole is an occupational therapist who runs a counselling practise advertising “Counselling, Psychotherapy, and Pilgrimage Support” at colleenotoole.ca. It’s not surprisingly, then, that Restoring Joy is an example of what anthropologist Nancy Louise Frey identified as “Camino as therapy walk” discourse. True to the genre, O’Toole’s book is not steeped in Catholic piety, nor in Spanish history or politics, which are almost never mentioned. The core of the book is far more personal and emotional than officially religious. In fact, the author pokes self-deprecating fun at herself for joining a line-up in Santiago and passing by the grave of St James, the goal of the historic pilgrimage, without even realizing where she was or what other pilgrims were doing (182). She refers to herself as an atheist (146), but a lively spirituality is nonetheless evident throughout. That spirituality tends to the Buddhist, with quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh (33, 51), Eckhart Tolle (1), Shunryu Suzuki (103), and reflections arising from meditation, mindfulness, and American Buddhist-based Dharma talks (193).
Although not directly related either to the author or this book, it’s necessary to point out that many – perhaps most – non-local pilgrims on the Camino these days represent an affluent Western demographic that can afford international flights and the luxury of taking a month off from work to walk through Spain. Those who write memoirs or create films about the experience (this reviewer included) fall into that category even more firmly. Thus, the entertaining cast of supporting pilgrims in Restoring Joy may hail from New Zealand, Quebec, Belgium, Sweden, Ireland, and Canada, but socio-economically they (we) form a fairly homogeneous and overwhelmingly white demographic.
Perhaps, then, another part of what distinguishes this book from the Camino-memoir crowd are the ways the author has chosen to give back by volunteering to support other pilgrims since her own walk. There are hints of this throughout Restoring Joy, in her mentions of preferring the donativo (donation-based) albergues, and O’Toole’s delight at acting, temporarily, as a hospitalero (a volunteer offering welcome and help to pilgrims), a role she has taken up again since.
“It is such a strange and deeply beautiful experience,” the author writes, “to be seen and tended to, to begin to feel real again” (83). “Can you imagine a more perfect place to learn how to live again,” she continues, “than on a pilgrimage full of people who are full of love, all walking each other home?” (238).
This is the healing with which Colleen O’Toole credits her 40-day walk. By writing Restoring Joy, she embodies her own advice that we “can’t expect people to see us if we are hiding, and we need to be seen to heal” (220).
Readers can be thankful the author has practiced that openness here. There is a social and emotional alchemy on walking pilgrimages – including some closer to home – that works its magic on many a trekker. It is a pilgrim’s gift, then, that true to her book’s title Colleen O’Toole has written not just an autobiography, but a memoir meant to help restore joy to all who suffer trauma yet are willing to walk with her on her healing journey.
Colleen O´Toole is a writer, occupational therapist, pilgrim guide and the human of a very devoted beagle. She and her husband David live in Hamilton, Ontario and are coordinators of their local Camino chapter, or as they call themselves, Communitas Co-pilots. She is also a member of the Boston Chapter of the American Pilgrims on Camino, an editor of the national Camino newsletter, Pilgrim Footprints, a pilgrim, and, very dear to her heart, she is an hospitalera and a hospitalero trainer. She maintains a private clinical practice in Hamilton, Ontario and continues to strive to bring awareness to the extreme grief and mental health issues related to familial estrangement and alienation. She began a trauma-informed, semi-supported Camino program, Let’s Walk Home, in 2024 and continues work in researching the therapeutic effects of pilgrimage after difficult life experiences.
Publisher: Stone Boat Editions (April 22, 2025)
Paperback 9″ x 6″ | 299 pages
ISBN: 9798218646035
Hi! I’m Matthew Anderson, a writer and professor living and working in Mi’kma’ki, on Nova Scotia’s North Shore. I’m the author of six non-fiction books and numerous short stories. Two recent award winners areSomeone Else’s Saint: How a Scottish Pilgrimage Led to Nova Scotia(2025, Pottersfield) andThe Good Walk: Creating New Paths on Traditional Prairie Trails(URP, 2024). I blog atwww.somethinggrand.caand produce a podcast atPilgrimage Stories From Up and Down the Staircase.
