Review
From the book jacket: From the author of the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller
Tuesdays with Morrie, a novel that explores the unexpected connections of our lives, and the idea that heaven is more than a place; it's an answer.
Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and...
Beyond the Book
Mitch Albom had published a handful of books before he hit paydirt with
Tuesdays With Morrie in 1997 which, surprisingly, far outsold Morrie Schwartz's own book,
Morrie: In His Own Words which had been published earlier.
Albom says that the lead character in
The Five People... was inspired by his uncle, Edward Beitchman, who was also a World War II veteran, who also died at 83, and also lived a life like that of the fictional character, rarely leaving his home city, and often feeling that he didn't accomplish what he should have.
