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On his way to a department store on 57th Street in Manhattan, 64-year-old businessman Irving Caldman is waiting at the intersection of Park Avenue with three other pedestrians
when a driver, asleep at the wheel, jumps the curb and ends all their
lives.
The next thing Irving knows, he is no longer preparing for a trip to
Paris with his wife. Instead, he is watching four faces as they ascend,
presumably to Heaven, on their way to be greeted by the angel Malakh.
Accompanying Irving are an attractive personal shopper in her early
fifties; a grandmother who works as a housekeeper nearby; a
twenty-something gay man who is an interior decorator; and the drive, a
candy store owner, widower, and concentration camp survivor.
Bound together for a week with Malakh before their souls will be
allowed to move on for judgment, Irving and his fellow victims are all
compelled to relate -- and at times narrate -- their life stories, in
order to evaluate and justify their earthly existence. As their
insecurities and deepest secrets are exposed -- as well as what lies
beyond -- a surprising dilemma develops.
I Never Saw Paris is a funny,
moving, and thought-provoking look at an improbable but, before long,
somehow inevitable group -- finally able to see their lives anew.
pub date: 2007-08-28 | hardcover | 9780786720545 |
