The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Cover of the novel's first edition
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| Author | Mitch Albom |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Phil Rose |
| Country | United States |
| Genre | Religious fiction, Philosophical fiction |
| Publisher | Hyperion |
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Publication date
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2003 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 196 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 52619795 |
| LC Class | PS3601.L335 |
The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a novel by Mitch Albom. It follows the life and death of a maintenance man named Eddie. In a heroic attempt to save a little girl from being killed by an amusement park ride that is about to fall, Eddie is killed and sent to heaven, where he encounters five people who had a significant impact upon him while he was alive. It was published in 2003 by Hyperion and remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for 95 weeks.
The story starts with an elderly gentleman named Eddie who works as the head of maintenance at an amusement park called Ruby aka Salty Pier. Eddie is a face known to regulars at the pier and is sometimes jokingly referred to as "Eddie Maintenance" due to the positioning of the patches on his work uniform. Eddie is able to perform his job (a job he inherited from his dad despite discontentment with life at the pier) despite a crippling leg injury he received as a soldier during World War II. Supposedly, rumors had been spread that Eddie had gotten into an altercation with a man in his platoon during the war - and "nobody knew what happened to the other guy. Nobody asked." This turns out to be foreshadowing to the time and place of the Captain's death, and foreshadowing to his Captain being the cause of his leg injury during the war in the Philippines.
On Eddie's birthday, one of the amusement park rides malfunctions because of a damaged cable, caused by a car key locking up the mechanics in the ride, and stops halfway through the ride. Two of the staff at Ruby Pier are able to rescue the passengers on the ride and then release the ride's cart for inspection- completely oblivious to Eddie's screams as he realized the cart will detach if it is released. As he realizes this, he notices a girl he'd seen before at the park (Amy/Annie), whose mother left her alone to be with her boyfriend, sitting helplessly in the exact spot the cart was set to impact. Eddie throws himself with all his might towards the girl, intending to pull her to safety. Eddie feels an exploding impact, sees a blinding flash, feels a little girl's hands in his own, and then nothingness.
Eddie then finds himself awake and uninjured and realizes that he feels young and much more energetic. He also felt calm when he landed. He meets a man known simply as "the Blue Man" who suffered from argyria caused by silver nitrate poisoning and worked at Ruby Pier's sideshow (while it was still open, during the days of Eddie's childhood) and whose real name is Joseph Corvelzchik. Through their conversation, Eddie finds out that he is dead, has gone to Heaven and has embarked on a journey through five levels of Heaven, at each step meeting another person who has had a significant impact upon his life, or upon whom he has had a significant impact. He also finds the reason for his sudden energy, youth, and stamina - in the five stages of Heaven, you will feel exactly the same way you did (young, old, healthy, sick, strong, weak) as you did when you knew the person you are meeting. Eddie asks why Joseph, whom he does not know, is his first person, and Joseph informs Eddie that he died when Eddie and his brother threw a baseball which landed in the middle of the road, this caused The Blue Man to have a heart attack and pull over the car and collapse. From this, Eddie learns his first lesson which is that there are no random events in life and all individuals and experiences are connected in some way.
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