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Welcome to from the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business and life in the South. Being happy is surpassed only by the ability to recognize and appreciate that happiness in the moment. Andrew McCarthy walking with Sam I'm Annie Jones, owner of the Bookshelf and independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week we're back with an installment of our podcast series into the Backlist. Have you ever wondered what our indie bookstore actually looks like? You might consider following us over on Instagram ookshelftville. There, Caroline, our marketing and events manager, posts behind the scenes pictures and gives important updates on store hours, events and special promotions. We would love to see you over there. Just follow us on Instagram bookshelfteville. Now back to the show because from the Front Porch is a podcast very much wrapped up in the comings and goings of our independent bookstore. Many of the books we feature on the show are new or many times not yet even released books, which means backlist titles. Those are books published more than a year ago can get lost or overlooked. We launched the podcast series into the backlist back in 2024 after I got to thinking about the magic of indie bookstores and how we try to replicate the in store magic for you, our long distance customer and podcast listener. One of the most magical things to me about shopping in an indie bookstore is the serendipitous nature of it. How you might st stumble upon a book you've never seen before and be inspired to read it or buy it because of an in store recommendation or simply because the book begs to be read from the shelf. Now don't get me wrong, I get that serendipitous feeling from new titles, but it seems to especially come from the unsung book, which is a phrase I used a couple of episodes ago. The book that's been out for a while, or the book only that particular store seems to know about. So now, every few months, every couple of months, every so often, I dig through the imaginary Bookshelf vault and highlight the Backlist titles I think are special books we keep on our shelves even though they might have been published years ago. Books we secretly hope a customer stumbles upon, asks us about, and eventually takes home for themselves. For past into the Backlist episodes you can go to our show Notes and see all of these kind of listed there. But for past episodes I've discussed Francis and Bernard, the ensemble, which we discussed because of Asia Gable's new book Lightbreakers the Mothers, which has come up a couple of times in recent Conversation Defending Jacob, History of Wolves and the Sea Will Tell. So those are. Let's see, how many episodes is that. That we've done now? Yeah, six. Six episodes we've done where we've kind of given a deeper look into a backlist title. So today I'm talking about a book that I actually read for the first time late last year, and that is Walking with sam by Andrew McCarthy. Yes, that Andrew McCarthy. The very same. The one you're thinking about, the one with the swoopy hair. Jordan and I were on a date night. Not at an indie bookstore, I'm sorry to say, but at Barnes and Noble, as I've discussed. I think I still love browsing Barnes and Noble simply because of the sheer volume the store has to offer. The chance of discoverability is huge. And it happened to be open, you know, after hours, like after. After 6pm So I came across this little yellow book while we were there for date night, and I had no intention of reading it. I think I was struck by the COVID color. It is this bright yellow. And then also the title, Walking with Sam, because I take a lot of walks with my dog Sam. And then, of course, Andrew McCarthy's name struck my eye because I was not in the memoir section. I was not in. In general nonfiction. I was in the travel section. I was in the travel section. And so it was funny to me to see a travel memoir by Andrew McCarthy. We're going to get to that more in a moment. So the book itself was eye catching. I grabbed it off the shelf and I just started to read the first page. Have we ever discussed how we know if a book is going to be for us or not? I feel like Hunter and I have had this conversation before. You might not know, but Hunter does not read the blurbs on the back of books. He just dives right in. And I. When he first told me that, I was a little bit shocked. And now I totally think he's right. Because if we think back to a couple of episodes and we think to Asia Gable's Light Breakers, I was overwhelmed by that blurb. I was totally overwhelmed. And so I honestly wasn't sure I was gonna pick it up. What makes me pick up a book is often a recommendation from someone else, or I will open the book and read the first couple of sentences and I. I kind of know from the get go. It's. It's funny. I don't know. I didn't date very much. Um, perhaps that's obvious by. By just me as a person and how and also how young I was and also how young I was when I met Jordan. So I didn't date very much. But I, I do think generally with friendships, certainly with my relationship with Jordan, I kind of knew automatically, like very quickly. I. I pass very quick judgment, for better or worse. And so I do the same with books. So, so I opened Walking with Sam, and I read the first couple sentences. I'm gonna read them to you now. And I was hooked. I immediately was like, I think I need this book. So the first chapter is called. Every chapter starts with a quote. I am about to get so sick of you. 484 miles to Santiago. The glass doesn't just break, it explodes into hundreds, thousands of pieces. On the terrace under a glow of artificial light in the summer night, Sam and I are getting up to leave the cafe off the central square of Place Charles de Gaulle, the Basque village of Saint Jean Piede Port in the southwest of France at the base of the Pyrenees mountains, when his hand brushes against the goblet. Over the course of his 19 years, my son has tipped sippy cups, dropped juice boxes, overflowed celebratory champagne flutes. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving if Sam didn't knock over a glass, his younger sister Willow once remarked after Sam sent his water flying over the turkey. Often these mishaps are a source of amusement. Just as often they're not. That's the first paragraph. And maybe to you that's like, well, yeah, sure, that's fine. No, I thought I loved it. Also, I'm a glass tipper myself, and so I felt a kinship with Sam pretty immediately. So I picked this book up and was hooked. From that paragraph, you will recognize McCarthy, of course, from his brat Pack days, though, you get the sense maybe he would like you to forget those brat pack days. In the decades since he's directed a few things, starred in a handful of others, but mostly, and I did not know this, Andrew McCarthy has settled into a career as a travel writer, even at one point, maybe even still serving as an editor at large for National Geographic Traveler. He's also, as you might have noticed from those few sentences, a dad. Walking with Sam is McCarthy's recounting of a trip he took with his then 19 year old son for the Camino de Santiago, an oft discussed and memorialized pilgrimage through Spain. With his son on the cusp of adulthood, McCarthy felt like revisiting the trail he'd walked as a young 20something himself. So the memoir functions as a sort of father, son travel guide, plus offers A nostalgic look back to youth from middle age. McCarthy is in his 50s for his for his second Camino trip. Even if I'd never seen St. Elmo's Fire, which would be very tragic or Pretty in Pink, I think I would have been captivated by walking with Sam. McCarthy spends much of the book trying to reconnect or just connect with his son, occasionally offering wisdom that's rebutted more often than not repeatedly encouraging him to wake up in time to beat the sweltering heat of a Spanish summer. Walking with Sam is a travel memoir, but it's also a memoir about parenting. I think that's why that first paragraph really struck me. I went in thinking we were going to get a hiking book, a trail book, and we do. I mean, that's definitely what the book is, but it's also a parenting book. And as someone new to parenting, I was intrigued by this father son dynamic, particularly this idea of a son who's about to embark on adulthood. And what do you as an adult, what do you as a parent want to impart? What wisdom do you want to give your kid as they're about to do the really hard thing of growing up? So this is a memoir about parenting, particularly parenting almost adult children. I loved the parts of the book where McCarthy reflects on his overprotective tendencies. You can feel like he's trying so hard to let Sam be his own person. There are a couple of moments in the book where he lets Sam hike parts of the trail on his own, but he's deterred by the fact that Sam still acts 19. Sometimes I would argue a little bit younger. Sometimes I would argue a little bit younger than 19. I have been intrigued by the Camino for a long time. This year, I feel like I watched one or two people on my Instagram feed do portions of the Camino de Santiago. And the book is set up so that the reader feels like we're traveling the road with Andrew McCarthy and his son Sam. Each chapter, like I said, leads with a quote from something one of them says to the other, and then it tells you how many miles there are to Santiago. And so you really do like the first few chapters, you have this nervous energy where Andrew McCarthy is constantly trying to get on the trail. At a certain time, he's trying to wake Sam up, and Sam is kind of a typical teenager trying to sleep in. In the middle, you get, like I said, this sweltering Spanish heat. It's like the hardest, the hottest part of the trail and the hardest part of the trail, and you feel, like, sweaty and gross and out of breath kind of in that middle portion. And maybe even things drag a little bit. And though not. It is not boring. I was never. I was absolutely never bored with this book. But, like, you get the sense that they feel like, oh, my gosh, when is this going to be over? And then the last section of the book or the last few chapters of the book, there's this real high where you know they're getting to the end. You can watch the numbers dwindle. Each chapter as you watch each chapter, show how close we're getting to the end of the trail. So you really do, as a reader, get to travel with them occasionally. The chapters meander a bit. McCarthy is really good about not only this personal memoir aspect. So it's his relationship with his son, it's his own relationship with his past. And then it is a look at the trail itself and what the trail means to people, what the different historical landmarks are. I thought it was fascinating and it made me want to walk the trail. I've never before thought about it. I've never before been so intrigued by it. I've been curious. I mean, I've seen some movies or I've watched people on Instagram kind of do it, but this is the first time I thought, oh, well, this would be interesting to do. So sometimes the chapters meander. They offer insight into the trail itself, and then you do kind of dip a toe into the lives and personalities of other various hikers and walkers on the trail. I loved this book. I mean, it's. It's pretty short. It's a short little paperback. I think it's. Let me look. It's about 240 pages. I flew through it, and at the same time, I took my time with it because I really enjoyed it. Being with Andrew McCarthy and Sam, I really was curious about their relationship, their dynamic. I felt like a fly on the wall in the best possible way. As it turns out, Andrew McCarthy has written a few books, a couple of which I was familiar with. I recall seeing them in the catalogs at various points. The first is the Longest Way Home, which I was not familiar with. That is a travel memoir as well. Brat, which is his story of being a member of the Brat Pack, which is a phrase he. He actually hates. There was a documentary recently. Was he in the documentary? Yeah. No. He's like the. He's. He's. Who did the documentary. The documentary Bratz. If you guys watched that, Jordan and I did, we were totally intrigued by it. So obviously this has been on his brain. So he wrote the memoir Brat, about his brat pack experience. And then there was a documentary that came out in 2024 that we really liked called Bratz, where he interviews. And it's so funny, cause he clearly kind of has his. Has a slight chip on his shoulder about the whole thing. But then somebody like Rob Lowe was like, no, it was fine. It was great. And so it's very funny to see different people's perspectives. And then he wrote a young adult novel a few years ago, and I remember this one as well, called Just Fly Away. He actually has a new memoir coming in March, which now I am tempted to read. I think previously I would not have given it maybe a second glance in the catalog, but the new book is called who Needs Friends? An unscientific examination of male friendship across America. And turns out he was inspired to write this book after, I wonder if it was on the walk. But at some point, his son Sam says to him, dad, you really don't have any friends, do you? And Andrew McCarthy kind of looks back and thinks, oh, oh, do I not? And so he then goes on this epic kind of adventure trip where he goes to see old friends and he goes to all these different places. So that's the premise of the new book, which comes out in a couple months. So if you're intrigued by this backlist title, maybe that one should be on pre order for you. I. I am now very curious about it. His writing is really great. I mean, it's entertaining, it's reflective. When I realized he was a travel writer, that made a lot of sense to me because to me, those are some of the best parts of the book. Occasionally the sentences, like, I think there were two or three sentences where I was like, well, that was a little much like. I feel like. I feel like we could have edited that down. But I think that's a personal taste thing. Anyway, Walking With Sam met me at just the right time. It was perfect for a year when I personally wasn't traveling as much as I'm used to. And so I felt like I was on a trip. It's one of those books where you feel like a traveler because you're reading this book about this guy's kind of epic adventure. Okay, that's about Walking with Sam and a little bit about Andrew McCarthy's writing career. So now let's dive into the book itself and let's do. Let's do some stats. This book isn't too far into the backlist. It was Originally published in May 2023. A hardback book, 256 pages by Grand Central Publishing. It was released in paperback in 2024. So it is mean. I again, I do think that's the beauty of a bookstore that can carry a lot of books. Not just your Barnes and Noble, but even your bigger indies like, oh, you know, like the Strand or something like that, where they are able to keep a lot of books in stock. We're going to carry this backlist title now because I love it so much, but it's a book I think I might not have stumbled upon just anywhere because it came out a little bit ago. So this was originally published in May of 2023. The critics consensus is overall positive. No starred reviews from Kirkus or Publisher Weekly. It was reviewed by Kirkus pretty positively. Maybe one of the sentences said, as a travel log, the narrative is no advertisement for the pilgrimage. I would disagree. The trail is blisteringly hot and dusty, and in villages along the way the two encountered surly waiters, bad food and inadequate pace, places to stay. The walk, though, was never about the destination, but rather about a father and son readying themselves for a new stage in their lives. This is a candid record of a difficult journey. I'm going to push back on the Kirkus review just a smidge. Yeah, the trail is hot and dusty. Have you ever hiked anything, sir or madam like? Yeah. What do you want him to tell you? That it's amazing. It's a pilgrimage. Pilgrimages aren't supposed to be like paved roads, and they do encounter surly waiters. They also acknowledge their own occasional rudeness, short temperedness. And they also encounter some really lovely places to stay. That's an interesting, that's an interesting review, but overall the review is positive. And he talks a little bit about how the book bounces back and forth between Andrew McCarthy's career and kind of a look back when he completed the trail 25 years prior, when he was in his late 20s, early 30s, looking for insight. He at that time was, I think, newly sober. And then you do watch his son like take up a smoking habit or pick up a smoking habit and talk about doing drugs and doing hallucinogenics and things like that. And you can, you can hear Andrew McCarthy trying to figure out how much, how much do I want to tell my adult son? What role do I play in this relationship? Like, how much am I supposed to tell him to learn from my mistakes? I thought it was fascinating. So the Kirkus review alludes to some of that, the New York Times review by Gregory Cowles was also pretty positive. He comes to the same conclusion. He pushes back a little bit on the character, the person who is is very much 19. And Gregory Cowles in the New York Times, I think, was a little put off by some of Sam's reluctance and his behaviors. He is coming off a breakup in the book, and so he does have these kind of teenage moments. But then Gregory Cowles ultimately says the walk is the thing. Sometimes physical togetherness and shared experiences are the most you can ask for in a relationship. And there are lovely examples of both here. I once heard a Catholic bishop compare pilgrimages to art and poetry as instances of beauty that can put us in touch with the sacred. At moments like this one, it's easy to see what he meant. The Camino is a religious pilgrimage for a lot of people. But Andrew McCarthy is not particularly religious. I believe he was raised Catholic and he says that in the book. But he is not particularly religious and neither is his son. And that's not why they're hiking the trail. And he talks about your Camino is your Camino. And so everybody kind of hikes for a different purpose, and not everybody on the road is religious. And so you don't get a lot of religiosity in this particular memoir about the trail. So if that's what you're looking for, that's not here. But this is just about personal reflection. And I'll tell you some other books it reminded me of in just a second. It's 4.3 stars on Goodreads with 7,000 ratings and 1,000 plus reviews, and it did make it to the New York Times bestseller list. My one sentence hand sell would be a father and son travelogue, not just about the Camino de Santiago, but about the pilgrimage of parenthood. And here's my favorite part. This is my favorite part. I love picturing who I would put this on an end cap or a shelf with. So if I did a whole end cap devoted to walking with Sam, I would put it alongside the following books. All of these are listed in the show Notes. Wild, of course, by Cheryl Strayed, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, along the way by Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez. See you in the Piazza by Francis Mays. Traveling with Pomegranates. This is one of my favorite backlist titles. Maybe I'll do another episode about it. But this is by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor. I own this one. This is a mother daughter pilgrimage story and I loved it. Oh, My gosh, I loved it. A Walk in the woods by Bill Bryson Travels With Charlie by John Steinbeck At Home in the World by Tish Ochsenreider One Italian Summer by Rebecca Searle Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. I believe there was at least one Quixote reference in Walking With Sam. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Phil's Favorite by Phil Rosenthal, and no Reservations by Anthony Bourdain. Lots of travel memoirs, food memoirs, but then some books where even though they're fiction, the setting really stands out. This would be a such a fun end cap to shop. Okay, some favorite quotes from the book. I'm going to read you a few of them. The first one is in reference to his son's breakup, because that's kind of what his son is bringing in to the hike. In fact, there's a scene where Andrew McCarthy is asking Sam if he'll do the walk with him, and he's kind of holding his breath, which I think sometimes parents do when they ask a young adult to do something like, are you. Are you going to risk this with me? Are you going to do this with me? Feels very vulnerable, I think. And I think Sam initially says no, but then he and his girlfriend break up. And this is what Andrew McCarthy says each person's first heartache is the first heartache ever and needs to be honored as such. Let the Camino do its work, I silently remind myself. Just walk alongside him. I thought that was lovely parenting advice. And then I loved this scene. Walking Into a City Walking out of a city is considerably more agreeable to the nervous system than walking into one. Emerging from the countryside onto paved roads, encountering trucks and traffic lights, buildings and commerce and people can be jarring. It seems unlikely that we could get used to the simplicity of society's absence after such a short time. But something in walking so intently demands attention to the present and explains why the days feel so full, even as little other than one foot after the other is taking place. And while the joys of the city are easily categorized, the excitement of setting out again outweighs the safety of the known. I loved that. I think he's a good writer. I really do think he's a good writer. I think you should read this if you long to be on an adventure, but the adventure you're living looks a lot like your own backyard. So I think part of the reason this book appealed to me, particularly in the at the tail end of last year, is because I did not go a lot of places last year. I mean, I think the farthest I went was, I don't know, Mississippi. Mississippi. I. Boston. The farthest I was Boston. I did go to New England last year, but it just was not a big travel year for me and for us, for all the obvious reasons. And so I loved getting to read about somebody in a different life stage from me. He's in a totally different stage of parenting than I am, obviously. And I still got to experience this father son relationship and also this very profound kind of once in a lifetime, or in Andrew McCarthy's case, this twice in a lifetime. Is there a TV adaptation of this book? No, but I will say I talked about briefly the memoir written by Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez. They wrote a book called along the Way, where I think they both chose to do, if not the whole Camino, part of the Camino together. And they have a Spanish heritage. And so they did it kind of in honor and in homage to their ancestry. And then I did not know that book existed, but I did know that in 2011, Emilio Estevez, he directed his dad, Martin Sheen, in a movie called the Way, which I think I saw. But then I watched a trailer in preparation for this episode, and I thought, maybe I only saw the trailer of this movie, but I would like to watch it. It got pretty good reviews. And interestingly, the book was true, their true experience. It was a memoir, but the Way is not about Martin and Emilio. It's about a fictional man traveling the Camino in honor of his deceased son. Anyway, I'm very curious about it now. So there's no TV adaptation of this book, nor do I think there would need to be. I mean, it would have been cool, maybe, to see a documentary about the trail. And maybe it wouldn't shock me because of Andrew McCarthy being not only a writer, but a filmmaker, if he might do a documentary either about the Camino de Santiago, or he's got that new book coming out, which feels like it would lend itself naturally to a documentary format. There's also a great. So no TV adaptation. I don't think there needs to be one, but you could watch the Way. And then the other thing that I do think might intrigue you is Julia Whelan, yes, Of audiobook fame, but also actress fame. She interviewed Andrew McCarthy for some kind of literary festival. I came across the video on YouTube, and she interviewed him. He's an interesting interview. He's not entirely forthcoming, but he warms up kind of as the interview goes along. But she interviews him about this book, and not only about the book, but about how he made the transition from writing from acting to writing and kind of why he made that transition. He laughs about it because he's like, well, it wasn't really a choice. I stopped getting roles. I had to do something else. Which I think is interesting. He's pretty upfront about his fame came when he was really young and then he kind of aged out and did not know where he really belonged. And so their interview is really good. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. So no TV adaptation, but I think there's a couple of things you could watch in honor of the book if you choose to read it. So that is into the backlist. That is my backlist. Deep dive for today. The book is Walking With Sam. This is by Andrew McCarthy. I think this would also be a really fun gift to give your adult kid or your graduating kid, because Sam in the New York Times review, I do think Sam gets the shortage of the stick a little bit. I think Andrew McCarthy is in part trying to protect Sam's privacy. And so perhaps Sam is not as reluctant to talk as the book suggests. But I think a kid, a kid on the cusp of adulthood might really appreciate that, seeing how hard a parent is trying, even though you might not realize it or want to or want to realize it, how hard a parent is trying to connect with you. I think this would make a lovely graduation gift this spring. Just a really good kind of armchair, armchair traveler kind of book. Belongs in your beach bag later this year. But I loved reading it this winter. Thoroughly enjoyed it. That is Walking with Sam by Andrew McCarthy. As usual, you can find that book and the others I talked about on today's episode on the bookshelf website. That's bookshelf thomasville.com just type episode 565. That's 5, 65 into the show. Notes this week I'm reading Homeschooled by Stephane Merrill Block. From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of the Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow the Bookshelf's daily happenings on Instagram, ookshelftville and all the books from today's episode can be purchased online through Our store website, bookshelf thomasville.com A full transcript of today's podcast episode can be found at. From the frontporchpodcast.com Special thanks to Studio D Podcast Production for production of from the Front Porch and for our theme music which which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations. Our executive producers of today's episode are Cami Tidwell, Jamie Treadwell, Linda Lee Drost, Jean Queens Martha Stephanie Dean Beth Ashley Farrell, Amanda Wickham, Nicole Marcy Wendy Jenkins. Thank you all for your support of from the Front Porch. If you'd like to support from the Front Porch, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the show even better and helps us reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the podcast app on your phone. Look for from the Front Porch, scroll down until you see, write a review and tell us what you think. Or if you're so inclined, support us. Over on Patreon, where we have three levels of support. Each level has an amazing number of benefits like bonus content, access to live events, discounts and giveaways. Just go to patreon.com from the front porch. We're so grateful for you and we look forward to meeting back here next week.