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
