The journey of an 83 year old man who has lived a fulfilling physical life but an unsatisfied mental life, this story begins where the rest end, the death of the protagonist. Hence the journey implies the afterlife. The original impression sort of throws us off by implying a religious novel however the book revolves around the five people you or anybody is destined to meet in heaven. Not random folks, but folks from your life whose life you altered or who affected you!!!
Eddie, the maintenance guy at an amusement park, Ruby Pier, led a predominantly banal life. He did fight in the World War II, where he was tortured at a PoW camp. While escaping though, he burnt the huts around and got hit by a bullet in his legs. One of the huts that he lighted up, he felt the presence of a kid, however, before he could enter the hut, he got hit by a bullet. Due to loss of his father and an ambitious brother, he was left to stay back in his hometown and take care of his mother. Being under qualified and physically handicapped, he could earn just one job that he dreaded the most, that of the maintenance guy at the amusement park that his abusive father did. All this while, he married the blossom of his life, his childhood sweetheart.
While saving a child at the amusement park, he dies and enters heaven where our book begins. His 5 people are - Carnie, the blue man from the freak show at Ruby Pier; Captain of his army from World War II; Mrs. Rubie, the owner of Ruby Pier; Marguriete, his wife and an unknown child.
It is one by one that he realizes that the place, things and events that he hated most had shaped his life. It was Carnie from Ruby Pier (the park that he hated!), who saved his life and sacrificed his own when Eddie was a kid. It was the captain who had hit him by the bullet, the bullet that he blamed for his in-capabilities all his life, to stop him from entering the hut and getting burnt down. The captain even sacrificed himself to save the troop from a land mine. Mrs. Ruby was the one who told him the sacrificing story of her husband and workers like his father behind the foundation of a park that never failed to entertain the town. It made him realize the pressure under which his father worked to have had a cranky look towards life. His wife reminded him of the wonderful years that they spent, their marriage years even though they were bereft of the love of a child. And in the end, he meets the kid. The kid from the hut, who he thought was an illusion!
The kid ends the story by making him realize that even though he couldn't save one kid, he saved thousands by taking care of them in the park. He, in fact, died saving one! But all that might not have happened if he wouldn't have been saved by Carnie, hit by a bullet by the captain and stayed put in the hometown because of his wife. Your life touches many and your life is touched by many. His afterlife explained to him the essence of his life, how precious it was! The story inspires me to believe in an afterlife that would answer my present.
The story makes one wonder whether heaven is a destination or an answer!
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