The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Cover of the novel's first edition
Author(s)	Mitch Albom
Country	United States
Genre(s)	Religious fiction
Publisher	Hyperion
Publication date	2003
Media type	Print
Pages	208
ISBN	0786868716
OCLC Number	52619795
LC Classification	PS3601.L335

The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a novel by Mitch Albom. It recounts the life and death of an old maintenance man named Eddie. After dying trying to save a little girl, Eddie finds himself in heaven where he encounters five people who have significantly affected his life.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven was published in 2003 by Hyperion, and remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for 95 weeks.

Synopsis

Storyline

The book starts with an old man named Eddie with a leg that he got during his service in the war. He now works as the head of maintenance at an amusement park located near a beach called Ruby Pier. On his birthday, one of the amusement park rides had a malfunctioning cable and stopped halfway up. Two of the staff at Ruby Pier attempted to rescue the passengers on that cart and successfully did so. The two staff then released the cart not knowing that there was a little girl under it. Knowing that the cart would kill the girl, Eddie attempted to save the girl by pushing her, but ended up killing himself. He does not know if he saved the girl.

Eddie then arrives at the first person that he meets. While meeting this person, he realizes that he feels young and much more energetic. Eddie later learns that he has to feel what he felt during the period of time that the person impacted him. The first person he meets is a man dubbed as "The Blue Man" for his blue skin from a childhood incident. He had worked at the freak show at the same park that Eddie worked at. Throughout their conversation, Eddie finds out that he has to meet five people who have impacted his life largely. Eddie asks why "The Blue Man" was his first person and "The Blue Man" informs Eddie that his death was caused by Eddie when he had run across the street as a child and caused "The Blue Man" to face a car accident soon after that would kill him. Eddie learns his first lesson too, which is that there are no random things in life and all things are connected to everything.

The second person that Eddie meets is his former captain while serving in the army. Eddie "woke up" to a rainforest like area and seeing his helmet with his dog tag buried in the ground (the sign of a grave), realized that he was back in the army. Eddie soon meets the captain sitting in a tree above him and starts talking to him. The captain reminded Eddie of what happened when Eddie, the captain and a group of men had been caught by Japanese soldiers and were imprisoned and forced to work. The group escaped after a lengthy period of time and set the camp to fire. While remembering these events, Eddie realizes that he had seen a shadow running from the hut that he was setting on fire. Up to that day at the pier, he still didn't find out who that person was. The captain confessed that he had caused Eddie's limpness in his leg because he had to shoot him to prevent Eddie from chasing the shadow in the fire (which would ultimately save Eddie's life). When escaping from the encampment, the group obtained a vehicle to flee. The captain would later die by a landmine when he would scout ahead, leaving the vehicle and saving the lives of the group. Therefore Eddie learns his second lesson that when somebody loses something, they usually gain something else.

The scene changes and Eddie finds himself outside a diner. When he goes inside he meets his third person and his father, who was a drinker and was a bad influence on Eddie's life. Eddie meets a young woman dressed in her working clothes (presumably those of the diner) and she explains that Ruby Pier was named after her own name, Ruby. Ruby confesses that she picked the diner because that was where she had met her future husband (who would later build Ruby Pier for his wife). Ruby teaches Eddie to forgive his father for all the trouble and hurt he had put onto Eddie.

Eddie now awakens in a room with several doors. He pulls through the doors one by one and in every room there is wedding from a different culture and Eddie eventually meets his late wife, Marguerite, in one wedding. Together they remember their own wedding and in the end, the lesson that Marguerite teaches Eddie is that love is never lost in death.

When Eddie awakens to a new scene, he sees children playing along a riverbed and a girl comes up to him. Through nearly comprehensible talk, the girl reveals that she was the little girl from the hut that Eddie was setting on fire (done so by saying, "You burn me."). The girl tells Eddie that her name is Tala and shows Eddie the burns that she suffered from the fire. She handed Eddie a stone and told him to rub the burns off. Eddie slowly starts to scrape off the injuries he had inflicted on her and soon Tala looks as if nothing had happened. Eddie remembers that he had felt the little girl's hands upon trying to push her out of harm's way and realizes that he had failed to save her. However, Tala refutes that answer and says that it were her hands that Eddie had felt pulling him safely up to heaven. In reality, Amy or Annie was saved from a cruel death, as her soul would've been reaped from her body too soon and she might have not went to heaven at all. The little girl teaches Eddie that his life was not for nothing and that the purpose of his life was to protect children at the pier.

In the end, it shows that Eddie's heaven was the Stardust Band Shell, where he met Marguerite. He is also one of Amy (or Annie)'s five people.

List of characters

• Eddie
• Marguerite, Eddie's wife
• Joseph Corvelzchik, The Blue Man
• The Captain, Eddie's commanding officer at war
• Ruby, a woman for whom Ruby Pier is named
• Tala, a young girl Eddie sees in a burning hut
• Emile, Ruby's husband, who also created the original Ruby Pier
• Joe, Eddie's older brother
• Eddie's mother
• Eddie's father, who abused Eddie his entire life
• Mickey Shea, a family friend
• Dominguez, Eddie's friend and coworker at Ruby Pier

Film

A made-for-television film adaptation of the novel, starring Jon Voight as Eddie, was released in 2004.

External links

• The Five People You Meet in Heaven at Albom's Official Website
• The Five People You Meet in Heaven publication history at the Internet Book List
• The Five People You Meet in Heaven at the Internet Movie Database