October 20th, 2004
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
by Mitch Albom
Amazon.com
Part melodrama and part parable, Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in
Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old
Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel
opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from
death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces
Eddie's world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing
days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In
alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie's birthdays, telling his life
story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the
third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the
maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life (a la
A Christmas Carol). Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as
Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie's own in ways he never
suspected. Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to
share. Through them Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his
arrival brings closure to theirs.
Albom takes a big risk with the novel; such a story can easily veer into the saccharine and preachy, and this one does in moments. But, for the most part, Albom's telling remains poignant and is occasionally profound. Even with its flaws, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a small, pure, and simple book that will find good company on a shelf next to It's A Wonderful Life. --Patrick O'Kelley --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.