stuleg's Full Review: Mitch Albom - The Five People You Meet in Heaven
"This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It might seem strange to start a story with an ending. But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time."
Eddie considers his life to have been one big waste of time; the one and only love of his life - Marguerite - died unreasonably young leaving him a lonely and disillusioned man. Numerous attempts at realising his dream and moving away to build a better life had floundered as first the war and then his Fathers death kept him in his hometown. A cruel leg injury during the war meant several months in hospital and a permanent limp thereafter, not to mention the frequent flashbacks and nigh-time terrors. So it was with a grudging recognition of his lot that Eddie took over his Fathers job at the Ruby Pier Amusement Park as head of maintenance. Dreams of becoming an Engineer died as Eddie realised he was to be one of life's inconsequential players, a man well respected but easily forgotten.
"Eddie saw nothing of his final moment on earth, nothing of the pier or the crowd or the shattered fibreglass cart."
On his 83rd Birthday Eddie is at work at the park as usual; little knowing that he has minutes to live as he limps from ride to ride ensuring each is running smoothly. Eddie is seen as a good, friendly and funny man by the many children who frequent the park, he makes miniature animals out of pipe cleaners - and despite his protestations that he doesn't enjoy it he secretly cherishes every occasion he is asked. So when he notices a child in danger he thinks nothing of his own safety and well being as he hobbles to remove her from harms way, a selfless act very much of the man - but an act that costs Eddie his life as a terrifying accident unfolds. As Eddie's soul leaves his body and searches for answers it becomes apparent that no matter how inconsequential Eddie felt his life was he had touched and guided a great many people without realising it. Five of whom were waiting for him in the afterlife to explain that fact.
"There are five people you meet in heaven" the Blue Man suddenly said. "Each of us 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."
Take a dash of Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" and a smattering of Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" and blend it with the finer points of the Alice Sebold book "The Lovely Bones" and you start to appreciate what "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" is all about. It was one of those books I did not want to end. Not being familiar with the author I didn't know what to expect, which was part of the charm of the story. I felt sympathy with the main character as he struggled to come to terms with his own death while being visited by people whose lives he had touched. Some of the people that visit Eddie are not immediately recognisable to him, making for interesting narrative as they talk Eddie through the tenuous way their lives crossed. Eddie can do little more than listen as he comes to accept his life has ended and he has passed to the "other side" - this makes for some heart wrenching and soul enriching moments as slowly each of the five souls reveal the way they died and the reason they wanted to speak to Eddie.
"The human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed."
Interspersed with the story are chapters entitled "today is Eddie's birthday"; this is done largely because Eddie died on his 83rd birthday. These one or two page asides start with the day Eddie is born and move through pivotal birthdays in his life, and although they add nothing to the main story they are clever asides explaining a few of the situations and events that shaped Eddies life. Above all else this is a good, basic and readable book with much thought put into the scenarios; this makes the descriptions of heaven and the after life as believable as they can be given that nobody - not even Albom himself - knows what that situation is like. I give 'the five people you meet in heaven' by Mitch Albom four stars out of five, an excellent book that captures its theme perfectly. If you are new to the genre I would recommend this book as a good starting point, sure it isn't the most challenging read you will ever have but it is a good, unputdownable and smooth flowing book that will surely have you searching Albom's back catalogue for more of the same. My only complaint is that at two hundred and forty pages it seems a little on the short side; especially as fifty or so of those pages are the "today is Eddie's birthday" chapters!
The textbook, Five People You Meet in Heaven, by Mitch Albom, available in Hardback. Published by: HarperCollins Publishers. Edition: . ISBN10: 0...More at Textbooks.com
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