The Next Person You Meet in Heaven

Mitch Albom turned a career started by an intensely personal memoir called “Tuesdays with Morrie” into a series of parables written as short novels.

He followed the mega-success of “Morrie” with his first novel, “The Five People You Meet in Heaven,” released in 2003.

In that book, an old amusement park mechanic dies saving a little girl from an accident. The old veteran dies thinking his life had no meaning. He meets five people in heaven who reveal how his life had meaning.

Fifteen years later, Albom has written a sequel to his first novel.

“The Next Person You Meet in Heaven” follows the life of Annie, the little girl saved at the amusement park.

She suffered the loss and reattachment of a limb as a result of the accident. She remembers nothing of this incident, including Eddie’s fatal role in saving her. The accident spurs Annie’s single mother to move them to another location. 

The accident leaves more than a mark on her arm where her hand was reattached.

Despite a difficult childhood and adolescence, she marries. The book opens with her wedding. Another accident occurs the day after the wedding ceremony. Annie is whisked to heaven where she meets her five people.

“Next Person” is written in the same easy-reading style as all of Albom’s books. He doesn’t claim his ideas of heaven are dogma. Instead, the book is more about how lives are interconnected with people we know well to people we don’t really know at all. 

A stranger can have as much impact on our lives as the most intimate relationship.

“Next Person” is another quick read. It falls more in line with the original “Five People” and some of Albom’s other novels compared to his last outing, the longer “The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto.”

For readers who enjoy Albom, his latest is a book worth meeting.