The Five People You Meet in Heaven
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| The Five People You Meet in Heaven | |
 First edition cover to the novel |
|
| Author | Mitch Albom |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Little, Brown & Time Warner Paperbacks |
| Publication date | 25 September 2003 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 228 pp (first edition, hardback) & 240 pp (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-316-72661-3 (first edition, hardback) & ISBN 0-7515-3682-2 (paperback edition) |
The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a novel by Mitch Albom, published in 2003. A television movie of the same name was broadcast by ABC in 2004, starring Jon Voight as the main character, Eddie.
Contents |
[edit] First Person in Heaven
Eddie travels to Heaven and meets his first person, the Blue Man. The Blue Man informs Eddie that he is going to meet five people in heaven whose lives he has some how affected. The Blue Man tells Eddie how he is indirectly responsible for his death: When Eddie was a child, he and his brother Joe were playing with a ball that bounced into the street. Eddie ran into the street to get the ball as the Blue Man was driving by. The Blue Man swerved out of the way, terrified that he would hit Eddie. Eddie ran safely back out of the street. The blue man hit a wooden cart while he was swerving out of the way. The blue man got out of the car and started getting anxiety. His anxiety caused him to have a heart attack, which then concluded in his death. The Blue Man teaches Eddie his first lesson, which is that there are no random acts in life, and that all incidents are intertwined in some way. Eddie is the main character of the novel and the one who is killed in an accident at ruby pier.
[edit] Second Person in Heaven
Eddie finds himself at a battleground (Philippines) where he was held captive for a long time. He meets his captain from back when he was in the army and finds out that the captain had been the one who injured Eddie's knee, although it was in order to save his life. The captain also lost his life that day, at that same battleground, leading the other soldiers to safety, stepping on a land mine. The captain teaches Eddie about sacrifice.
[edit] Third Person in Heaven
Eddie then finds himself in a mountain range. He finds a single diner at the bottom of the mountains and through the window he can see his father sitting at a table. He meets Ruby who tells him that she is the person for whom the pier is named. She shows Eddie a horrifying scene where Mickey Shea almost hurt his mother; Eddie's father saw what happened and chased Mickey Shea, possibly to kill him. Mickey falls off the pier into the sea and Eddie's father saves his life. This is the night where Eddie's father caught pneumonia which later killed him. Ruby allows Eddie to see that his father was being loyal to one of his best friends. Ruby teaches Eddie to forgive his father and let go of the anger he had for him. Eddie does this by visiting him in the diner and telling him "It's fixed."
[edit] Fourth Person in Heaven
Eddie blinks and finds himself in a room whose doors lead to different wedding receptions. Eddie walks through the various receptions and meets his fourth person, Marquerite, his long-dead wife. She and Eddie talk for a long while, as this is the first time they have been reunited since her death. For his fourth lesson, Marguerite teaches Eddie about the power of love; she states that even though people pass away, their love does not die. Marguerite tells Eddie that she loved him even after her death and that true love endures forever.
[edit] Fifth Person in Heaven
The final person Eddie meets in heaven is a young Asian girl named Tala. Tala explains to Eddie that he killed her in a fire, and Eddie realizes that he had seen a child in the burning hut in the Philippines during the War. Tala's skin suddenly becomes marked with burns and scars. Eddie washes her free of all her burns and injuries from the fire. For his last lesson, Tala allows Eddie to see that his place in life was to be at Ruby Pier keeping the children safe. When Eddie asks if he pulled the girl out of the way of the falling cart, Tala replies negatively: he didn't pull her out of the way, he pushed her out of the way. Eddie denies it, saying that he felt the girl's little hands in his. Tala tells him it was her hands that he felt. Tala pulled him into heaven after he saved the little girl.
[edit] Ruby Pier
Eddie grows up at Ruby Pier, as his father worked there as a maintenance man. When he grows up, he tries to leave the pier behind him and takes up jobs such as driving taxis instead of following in his father's footsteps. When his father dies, he is forced to take up his old job in an effort to support his wife and his mother financially. He and his wife end up living in an apartment from which the Carousel at Ruby Pier can be seen. In the end, Eddie never does leave Ruby Pier and lives out his days until he eventually dies while saving a young girl from dying under a malfunctioning free-falling ride.
The fictional amusement park "Ruby Pier" where Eddie works seems to draw many parallels to the real life amusement park "Luna Park" located in Coney Island, although it also has many similarities to Pacific Park as well. These parallels include...
- Both parks are named after people close to the original owner
- Luna Park for owner's sister Luna
- Ruby Pier for owner's wife Ruby (one of the people Eddie meets in heaven)
- Both parks had fires that lead to the loss of the original ownership
- Ruby Pier's fire leads to the selling of the park
- Because of the expensive costs, Luna Park is let go by the original owner(s) (not sold away)
- Both parks had/have very grand entrances
- seem to be described (by the book and in pictures of Luna Park) as very similar entrances by the large scale and grand arches/domes
