from albom.com
This week's Entertainment Weekly gives some love to Tuesdays With Morrie author Mitch Albom with a piece that answers to critics who accuse Albom of being treacly or sentimental, possibly buttressed by the fact that his other two books are called The Five People You Meet In Heaven and For One More Day, about a guy who gets to spend the day with his dead mother. Whether intentionally or not, Albom challenges the reader (and writer Gregory Kirschling ) to remain cynical about him, as Kirschling meets Albom in Detroit at a homeless shelter ("This is just where I was on Monday. If you had come tomorrow, we could be at a nice restaurant") and chats with the self-described sentimentalist who doesn't write for the critics anyway ("Critics have a problem with sentimentality. Readers do not. I write for readers").
Other humbling reasons why Mitch Albom is probably a better person than you, besides the above-mentioned volunteering at the homeless shelter: He is tying his book tour to fundraising events for various charities ("If it works, I'll be doing good for somebody other than myself while I'm out there") and stops in airports to talk with fans about their life-altering experiences. Albom feels no shame in embracing sentimentalism; chances are he thinks you're actually too cynical. And really, where does that get you aynway: "For better or for worse, I've watched people die in front of me. I see how they are in the end. And they're not cynical. In the end, they wanna hold somebody's hand. And that's real to me."
Alas, more real than the two basketball players that Albom wrote about as though observing them at a game but didn't actually see, becauase they didn't actually go. You are allowed to be cynical about how Albom dismisses the event ("It was just rushed. But that's all it was.It was just a rush") and note with an arched eyebrow that in his "rush" he described what the players were wearing and how important it was for them to have traveled to be there, a day before it actually didn't happen. But no matter. The point is, Mitch Albom only needs to wonder about the four people you meet in heaven; he's pretty much got that last spot sewn up.
NB: This article is from pgs. 42-44 of the Oct. 6/06 EW, which is not yet online. If it were, I could point out that it has a piece about Beck on pg. 68 called "Beck Of A Job" — just like today's Radar. Great minds think alike!
