So first I had to get over the eeep-moment when I realize Andrew McCarthy has written a book about walking 500-miles across Spain with his 19-year-old son and yes, OK, hello, how is it that Blane from “Pretty in Pink” has three kids now?

Never mind that three children in this house call me “Mom,” too. Wasn’t McCarthy just declaring his love to Molly Ringwald in that parking lot, struggling to write in “St. Elmo’s Fire” or swoonily defending Rosalind Chao in “Joy Luck Club?”

Eighties-flashback aside, McCarthy, 60, is of course not only “an avatar of a generation’s youth,” but also an award-winning travel writer and television director.

His new travel memoir “Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain,” debuted in the Top 10 of the New York Times bestseller list this week.

McCarthy dropped by Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena on May 18 to talk about the book, which chronicles the five-week, 500-mile Camino de Santiago pilgrimage he completed with his then 19-year-old son Sam in 2021

“I really wanted to try and transition our relationship from parent/child to two adults,” McCarthy said. “At one point Sam said, ‘It takes a long time, if ever, for a child to see their parents as real people.’ I think the inverse can be very true as well. One of my goals for the trip was to ‘see’ each other more clearly.”

Against the backdrop of the Camino, starting from France, over the Pyrenees, into Pamplona, Logroño, Burgos, Leon and Galicia, ending at the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, the father-son trip followed the footsteps of centuries worth of pilgrims.

During McCarthy’s first Camino, done in the ’90s when he was grappling with his “Brat Packer” fame, his “white-light” moment was how much fear he carried about life. This time, having his firstborn as his companion on the road, was enough.

“You just go, you need so little,” McCarthy said. “You start walking and everything falls into place. Have some laughs, have a good time, and the big stuff happens.”

Blisters and hard beds were part of the course. But moments of grace came, too.

 

 

 

“On the walk I had the ultimate luxury that a parent can have with an adult child, the luxury of time,” McCarthy said. “I didn’t feel the need to offer advice and impart ‘wisdom.’ I simply walked beside him and let Sam hash things out for himself. To simply listen. I didn’t have to be wise.

Since the walk, Sam has mentioned that he now has more trust with me, I would say that’s largely the result of my keeping my mouth shut as much as I could.”

Sam would later say the Camino was the only 10 out 10 thing he’d done in his life. His father said his first pilgrimage also yielded “marrow-deep realizations.”

“My wife is Irish and there’s an Irish saying, ‘I felt like myself from the toes up,’” McCarthy said. “I felt like that. The only other time that happened was when I was 15 and had just been cut from the basketball team and my Mom suggested I try out for the school play.

I ended up getting the part of the Artful Dodger in ‘Oliver!’ When I walked onstage, I felt like myself from the toes up. In that instant, I knew it was what I was doing with my life.”

Fatherhood is a journey McCarthy walks with Sam, now 21, daughter Willow, 16, and son Rowan, 9. McCarthy left home at 17 and didn’t have much of a relationship with his father, to whom “Walking with Sam” is dedicated. The two did come together before his father’s death.

“We didn’t solve any of the past,” McCarthy said. “We just dropped it, and all that was left was love.”

More relaxed (or exhausted) now as a parent, when he first became a father, McCarthy said he was “what I’m sure most every new father is like — thrilled, scared, proud, sleep deprived, hyper-vigilant, clueless.

“A friend’s father, a quiet man from a small southern town whom I had previously dismissed as a bit of a country bumpkin, took one look at me, saw the fear in my eyes and said in his soft drawl, ‘Andy, you just love ’em and keep ’em dry. The rest works out.’ Still the best advice I’ve ever gotten on parenting.”

Post-Camino, McCarthy is working on a documentary based on his book, “Brat: An ’80s Story,” set for probable release in the fall. He’s come to see how people perceive themselves through his role in their youth as something beautiful.

“I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and was part of a cultural shift in entertainment,” he said. “That over the decades, I and other members of the Brat Pack have come to be seen as ‘avatars’ of youth for a certain generation has become a blessing that only increases with time.”

The reward is the work, he said, be it making movies, travel writing or raising kids. Walking the Camino was work too — walking as a form of prayer, walking as a way to love.

When the time comes, will McCarthy embark on another Camino trip with his 9-year-old?

“He better grow up quick, I’m not getting any younger,” McCarthy said. “But yeah, I’d do it in a second if he wants to. I did offer to walk with my 16-year-old daughter Willow. She said, ‘Can we just go to Paris?’”

Anissa V. Rivera, columnist, “Mom’s the Word,” Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Whittier Daily News, Azusa Herald, Glendora Press and West Covina Highlander, San Dimas/La Verne Highlander. Southern California News Group, 181 W. Huntington Drive, Suite 209 Monrovia, CA 91016. 626-497-4869.