Synopses & Reviews
"What if the end is not the end?" From the beloved author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven comes his most thrilling and magical novel yet — a page-turning mystery and a meditation on the power of human connection.
One morning in the small town of Coldwater, Michigan, the phones start ringing. The voices say they are calling from heaven. Is it the greatest miracle ever? Or some cruel hoax? As news of these strange calls spreads, outsiders flock to Coldwater to be a part of it.
At the same time, a disgraced pilot named Sully Harding returns to Coldwater from prison to discover his hometown gripped by "miracle fever." Even his young son carries a toy phone, hoping to hear from his mother in heaven.
As the calls increase, and proof of an afterlife begins to surface, the town — and the world — transforms. Only Sully, convinced there is nothing beyond this sad life, digs into the phenomenon, determined to disprove it for his child and his own broken heart.
Moving seamlessly between the invention of the telephone in 1876 and a world obsessed with the next level of communication, Mitch Albom takes readers on a breathtaking ride of frenzied hope.
The First Phone Call from Heaven is Mitch Albom at his best — a virtuosic story of love, history, and belief.
Review
“Albom has a nose for ‘thin places: places where the boundary between secular and sacred is porous, and ultimate meaning is easier to encounter….This brisk, page-turner of a story [is] another winner from Albom.” Publishers Weekly
Review
“A beautifully rendered tale of faith and redemption that makes us think, feel, and hope — and then doubt and then believe, as only Mitch Albom can make us do.” Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain
Review
“Beautiful and smart. Perhaps the most stirring and transcendent heaven story since Field of Dreams.” Matthew Quick, New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook and The Good Luck of Right Now
Synopsis
The First Phone Call from Heaven tells the story of a small town on Lake Michigan that gets worldwide attention when its citizens start receiving phone calls from the afterlife. Is it the greatest miracle ever or a massive hoax? Sully Harding, a grief-stricken single father, is determined to find out. An allegory about the power of belief — and a page-turner that will touch your soul — Albom's masterful storytelling has never been so moving and unexpected.
Readers of The Five People You Meet in Heaven will recognize the warmth and emotion so redolent of Albom's writing, and those who haven't yet enjoyed the power of his storytelling, will thrill at the discovery of one of the best-loved writers of our time.
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About the Author
Mitch Albom is a best-selling author, screenwriter, playwright and nationally-syndicated columnist. The author of five consecutive No.1
New York Times bestsellers, his books have collectively sold more than 33 million copies in forty-two languages worldwide.
Tuesdays with Morrie, which spent four straight years atop the
New York Times list, is now the bestselling memoir of all time.
Four of Albom's books, including Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, For One More Day and Have A Little Faith, have been made into highly acclaimed TV movies for ABC. Oprah Winfrey produced Tuesdays with Morrie, which claimed four Emmy awards including a best actor nod for Jack Lemmon in the lead role. Albom's most recent novel, The Time Keeper debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times list in September of 2012.
In collaboration with Jeffrey Hatcher, Albom adapted Tuesdays with Morrie into a hit play that opened off-Broadway in late 2002 and has since seen hundreds of versions produced across the US and Canada. As a columnist for The Detroit Free Press, Albom has won more than 200 writing awards, including the Red Smith Award for lifetime achievement in sports writing. Albom also hosts a daily radio program and is a frequent presence on ESPN.
Albom has founded six charities in and around Detroit, including the first ever 24-hour medical clinic for homeless children in America. He also operates an orphanage in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, dedicated to the safety, education and spiritual development of impoverished children who were victims of the 2010 earthquake.
Albom lives with his wife, Janine, in metropolitan Detroit.