The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a novel by the American writer Mitch Albom, published in 2003.

Eddie has spent his working life at Ruby Pier, keeping the rides in order, and the novel opens with his death and then works back through his birthdays. In heaven he meets five people in turn, each of whom explains something he never knew about his own life: a man he killed as a child, his commanding officer from the war, an old woman from the park, the wife he lost, and a girl. Albom builds the book as a series of explanations, so the reader learns the shape of Eddie's life at the same time he does, and the lessons are about the connections between people who never speak to each other. The amusement park is described in the detail of its paint and its machinery, and Eddie's father, his wartime service and his marriage are all told in flashback between the meetings.

The book is short, and its structure is closer to a fable than to a conventional novel.