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


From Publishers Weekly
"At the time of his death, Eddie was an old man with a barrel chest and a torso as squat as a soup can," writes Albom, author of the bestselling phenomenon Tuesdays with Morrie, in a brief first novel that is going to make a huge impact on many hearts and minds. Wearing a work shirt with a patch on the chest that reads "Eddie" over "Maintenance," limping around with a cane thanks to an old war injury, Eddie was the kind of guy everybody, including Eddie himself, tended to write off as one of life's minor characters, a gruff bit of background color. He spent most of his life maintaining the rides at Ruby Pier, a seaside amusement park, greasing tracks and tightening bolts and listening for strange sounds, "keeping them safe." The children who visited the pier were drawn to Eddie "like cold hands to a fire." Yet Eddie believed that he lived a "nothing" life-gone nowhere he "wasn't shipped to with a rifle," doing work that "required no more brains than washing a dish." On his 83rd birthday, however, Eddie dies trying to save a little girl. He wakes up in heaven, where a succession of five people are waiting to show him the true meaning and value of his life. One by one, these mostly unexpected characters remind him that we all live in a vast web of interconnection with other lives; that all our stories overlap; that acts of sacrifice seemingly small or fruitless do affect others; and that loyalty and love matter to a degree we can never fathom. Simply told, sentimental and profoundly true, this is a contemporary American fable that will be cherished by a vast readership. Bringing into the spotlight the anonymous Eddies of the world, the men and women who get lost in our cultural obsession with fame and fortune, this slim tale, like Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, reminds us of what really matters here on earth, of what our lives are given to us for.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
"I'm especially proud to have an audio version of this book, since it harkens back to the way my first stories came to me--not by the written page, but by other people's voices." That's Mitch Albom himself in his introduction. This writer's commitment to the aural tradition is clearly demonstrated in the sophistication with which his book is presented. Erik Singer's virtuoso performance is set off with musical interludes and background noises that are diverting but never distracting. The teaching parable is built around an 83-year-old war vet turned maintenance man who dies trying to save the life of a little girl. This is at the Ruby Point Amusement Park. "All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time..." B.H.C. 2004 Audie Award Finalist © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Albom, newspaper columnist and radio broadcaster, is, of course, best known as the author of the astonishingly successful Tuesdays with Morrie (1997). This is his first novel. With an appropriately fable-like tone, Albom tells the story of Eddie, "an old man with a barrel chest." But for us, Eddie's story "begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun"--at Ruby Pier, an amusement park by the sea, where he spent most days, for despite his advanced years, he worked as a maintenance man on the rides. He dies on his eighty-third birthday trying to save a little girl from an accident. Eddie wakes up in heaven, where he is informed that "there are five people you meet in heaven. Each . . . was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth." And, not surprisingly, this is what the novel is about: Eddie coming to appreciate his 83 years of mortal life; the novel's "point" is that apparently insignificant lives do indeed have their own special kind of significance. A sweet book that makes you smile but is not gooey with overwrought sentiment. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"Sincere. . . . A book with the genuine power to stir and comfort its readers."


People magazine
"Fans of Tuesdays with Morrie will be delighted with this novel."


Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Albom has a gift for tapping into readers' sincerely sentimental spots, and he will undoubtedly connect again here."


Atlanta Journal Constitution
"Transcendent. . . . Albom has aimed high here, and there's a whiff of paradise as a result."


The Boston Globe
"Albom has the ability to make you cry in spite of yourself."


Oakland Press
"Albom has done a masterful job."


Los Angeles Times
"There's much wisdom here . . . An earnest meditation on the intrinsic value of human life."


Book Description
Plot Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him, as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?" Personal Details Collection Status In Collection Index 10 Read It Yes Links Amazon US Product Details LoC Classification PS3601.L335F59 2003 Dewey 813/.6


About the Author
Mitch Albom is the author of the #1 international bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie. A nationally syndicated columnist for the Detroit Free Press and a nationally syndicated radio host of his own show, Albom has also been named the top sports columnist in the nation 13 times by the Associated Press Sports Editors of America -- the highest honor in his field. He is the founder of The Dream Fund, a charity which helps underprivileged youth study art, and of A Time to Help, a volunteer program. Albom serves on the boards of numerous charities. He lives with his wife in Michigan.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From the author of the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, a novel that explores the unexpected connections of our lives, and the idea that heaven is more than a place; it's an answer.

Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?"

FROM THE CRITICS

People Magazine

Fans of Tuesdays with Morrie will be delighted with this novel.

Janet Maslin - New York Times

Sincere. . . . A book with the genuine power to stir and comfort its readers.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Albom has a gift for tapping into readers' sincerely sentimental spots, and he will undoubtedly connect again here.

Los Angeles Times

There's much wisdom here . . . An earnest meditation on the intrinsic value of human life.

Boston Globe