The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Softcover

Albom, Mitch

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1401398030 ISBN 13: 9781401398033

Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA, 2004

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

Albom has done it again... FIVE PEOPLE is a powerful book, powerful enough to make one's inner snob feel a little uncomfortable...Albom has touched the lives of a lot of people he never even knew. If there is a heaven, he can expect to have around 5.7 million people waiting for him there (Time)

[Eddie] learns not only about his life but also about what his time on earth meant. It is simple, unaffected and written with great feeling (Publishing News)

Simply told, sentimental and profoundly true, this is a contemporary American fable that will be cherished by a vast readership . . . this slim tale, like Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, reminds us of what really matters here of earth, of what our lives are given to us for (Publishers Weekly)

Mitch Albom lifts us to a new level ... You'll find here echoes of the classics - The Odyssey for one - and that puts Albom's book in the best of company (Frank McCourt, author of ANGELA'S ASHES)

Book Description:

Erik Singer is a theatre, television and voiceover actor. His theatrical credits include Othello, The Taming of the Shrew and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1401398030
• ISBN 13: 9781401398033
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 196