The First Phone Call from Heaven (by Mitch Albom)

Browsing a church bookstall a few months ago, I spotted a book with an intriguing title:‘The first phone call from Heaven’ by Mitch Albom. I remembered having liked very much his first novel, ‘The five people you meet in Heaven’ (though I am shocked to discover that it’s almost fifteen years since I read that!). So I bought it, and decided to start reading it a few days ago.

We meet, in the first chapter, three different people who have unexpected phone calls. They hear the voices of loved ones who have died in the past few years. Each one tells the listener that they’re in Heaven, where there’s lots of love and everything is forgiven.

Tess is the first person mentioned: she hears her dead mother’s voice on the phone. Then Jack, who hears his son, a young man who died in military action. Then there’s the excitable, rather dramatic Kathleen, who hears the voice of her dead sister.

The last part of the first chapter - and it’s a short chapter - introduces Sully Harding, emerging from jail. He is greeted by his young son and his parents, and it’s immediately clear that someone important is missing. We gradually learn his story through the course of the book.

My only real problem with the book is that the characters are not very well developed or memorable. Although I read the bulk of the book in one sitting, I often had to check back to remind myself who was whom. Indeed, in writing this, I had to open the book to look for a couple of the names of these most significant people. I really didn’t keep track of most of the others. The most sympathetic, I thought, was the librarian Liz, who I liked very much, but she doesn’t appear until the later part of the book.

However it’s not really a character-based book. It’s ‘literary fiction’, which means it doesn’t fit in any other genre, and despite my not really relating to any of the main characters, I found it difficult to put down once I’d started. Were these people really hearing phone calls from heaven? If so, what was so special about their small town in Michigan? If they were all deluded, what caused it? Or was it some kind of elaborate hoax…? If so, what was its purpose?

The writing is very good: terse, nicely paced, and often intriguing. There’s a strong spiritual thread running through; inevitably the local churches become involved, and the general public starts believing in God and doing more to help other people. But the point is made that faith doesn’t need proof, and that these phone calls are in some cases quite disturbing. People think they would give anything to hear from someone they love who is no longer with them; but maybe it’s not such a good thing.

Inevitably, too, the population - not just of the town, but of a much wider area once the story makes national news - is divided, and polarised. It’s set in the United States, where many people see issues in a cut-and-dried fashion, with no grey areas or even room for compromise.

I didn’t relate to the hysteria or passions that drove people to drive hundreds of miles and camp out in the town - I assume this was meant to be light-hearted exaggeration, poking fun at some extremists. But I liked the way that the people of the town reached out to the visitors, giving them food and shelter when possible, and not turning them away.

So despite the oddity of the premise and the lack of clear main characters, I enjoyed the book very much. It’s not one I’ll necessarily want to read again, but certainly worth keeping on our shelves. I would recommend it to anyone looking for something a bit different, who doesn’t mind a ‘religious’ thread.

Review copyright 2020 Sue's Book Reviews