The market is flooded with books that are all about a feel-good experience, many of them being published in affordable volumes that can be bought even at traffic signals or railway stations. The First Phone Call from Heaven is one of these.
Pick it up before you start a journey of, say, an hour or so and by the time you get to your destination, you will be done. You walk out of the train, plane or whatever feeling warm and fuzzy, as if someone has given you a nice hug and told you that there is peace on earth and everyone is happy.
The trouble is when you get out of the fug, you realise that it is not just predictable, trite and eminently forgettable, it is also not very well written.
This one has a decent story about cashing in on the need to hold on to a loved one even after they are dead. A small town on the banks of Lake Michigan attracts attention from all over the world when the people who live there start getting phone calls from people who have passed away. It is a tight-knit community, where everyone knows everyone else. There are five churches, led by five priests, apart from a library and a real estate office, along with all the other establishments that make up small-town business. There is, of course, a seasonal tourist-fishing hub, closed when the weather turns cold. A typical sleepy hamlet, with not much going on.
But it all wakes up when one day Tess Rafferty’s phone rings. The answering machine picks up the call, since Tess is busy making tea. She listens to the voice on the other end of the line with growing horror and fearful astonishment. It is her mother saying, “I need to tell you something.” The lady has been dead for four years. And it is not just Tess. Katherine Yellin hears from her sister; Elias Rowe listens to his employee; Jack Sellers gets a call from his son …
And then there is Sully Harding, a former pilot who walks out of jail after a 10-month sentence for allegedly causing a plane crash. He loses his wife on the same night; her car is involved in a crash as she is rushing to see if he has survived the airplane disaster and then dies after being in a coma for a while. He has a six-year-old son to look after once he is done with his prison term. Harding is a bitter man, cursing circumstances and life for his misfortunes, when his wife calls. When his son finds out, the child clings to the hope that some day he will be with his mother again, and waits desperately for the next call.
The calls go on, always made to a cell phone from a specific company. Sales of that model shoot up and supplies are shipped in to meet ever-growing demand. But is it all real? Are these genuine phone calls or an elaborate hoax? Sully tries to find out, with the unwitting help of a pretty television journalist. And the story travels through small-town customs, human faith, the power of hope and much more. It is essentially an allegory about how powerful belief can be.
Brimming with sweetness and light, sometimes at levels that could easily cause biliousness, it almost convinces you to go out and bless a child or save a homeless elk. But there is also too much wrong with it for a critic to be that approving. The story and its characters are illogical and inconsistent. After wallowing through sentimental paragraphs and fluff, it is a bit too much to find an ending that is a mix of James Bond and Disney. Should you buy this? If you are travelling to somewhere an hour away, why not!
The First Phone Call from Heaven;Mitch Albom, Sphere, Rs.499.
