Mitch Albom mesmerised readers around the world with his international bestsellers, The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie. Now he returns with a beautiful, haunting novel about the family we love and the chances we miss.
Charley Benetto’s life begins to unravel following the death of his mother. He sinks into depression, becoming an alcoholic. He loses his job. His family leave him. He finally hits rock bottom after discovering he isn’t welcome at his only daughter’s wedding. Wracked with regret and loneliness, he believes there is no one left to miss him when he is gone. And he decides to take his own life.
Charley makes a midnight journey to the town where he grew up: to end his life where it began. But as he staggers into his old house, he makes an astonishing discovery. His mother – who died eight years earlier – is there, and welcomes Charley home as if nothing had ever happened.
What follows is the one seemingly ordinary day so many of us yearn for: a chance to make good with a lost parent, to explain the family secrets and seek forgiveness. Somewhere between this life and the next, Charley learns the astonishing things he never knew about his mother and her sacrifices. And he tries, with her tender guidance, to put the broken pieces of his life back together.
‘Mitch Albom sees the magical in the ordinary’
Cecilia Ahern
‘It will resonate with anyone who has suffered a bereavement only to realize how much about the life of a loved one was unknown and how many secrets went unshared’
Sunday Express
‘Another very touching page-turner’
Star magazine
‘A warm and tender tale’
Irish Evening Herald