...by MItch Albom. Copyright 2006. He has written others: 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven ', and 'Tuesdays with Morrie'. If you have read either of those, you will know to expect something similar with the one I just read (on CD - a quick read, only three discs). Sweet, sort of sappy, but something that will ultimately tug at your heart. A reminder about what is most important in life: people.
The main character, Chick to his dad, and Charlie to his mom, felt like a complete failure as the story begins. He wanted to play professional baseball, partially to please his dad, who had left the family by the time Charlie was a teenager. His pro-ball days were brief, and he spent years job hopping, searching for success, his niche. He drank too much, eventually felt like such a failure after his daughter grew to adulthood and married without his knowledge, that he attempted suicide.
Most of the story is told in retrospect, as he walks through a day in the small town where he grew up. "One Day" spent with his mother, as he is given the time to talk with her years after her death. She reveals things about herself and her marriage she chose to shield from him as a child. Putting their relationship and his life into a different perspective, giving him the wisdom to see what is truly important: time spent with those you love.
I read the 'Morrie' story years ago, and more recently the 'Five People' book. It's been long enough that I do not recall much in the way of details. But I would classify Albom as a man who writes from the heart. The 'Day' book starts off as something very believable, the requires you to suspend your belief, as it veers off into the supernatural. In order to provide us with the message that we fool ourselves when we devote our lives to inconsequential matters - spending your days and weeks, years on things of a superficial nature is such a waste of that most limited resource: time.
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