Mitch Albom Unveils New Book

Best selling author/artist Mitch Albom--whose writing talent knows no equal--is once again at work on a brilliantly insightful masterpiece of a novel that will no doubt move you to tears, laughter, and pure ecstasy. It is safe to say that if you do not buy this book, read it, share it, and love it, then you have no soul. If you criticize this work of art, your heart is black and rotten, and your hate children and puppies and senior citizens. Yes, this is truly Mitch's best work yet.

The almost completed eighty-five page novel (double-spaced and in fourteen-point font with pages possessing margins of two full inches), will be titled The People Who Move Us, and it is about a gruff, blue-collar Detroit repairman named Mickey who maintains the People Mover--the fabulous fully-automated light rail system that transports literally tens of Detroiters each day to and from all of Motor City's hot business and entertainment spots.

On a bitter cold winter morning after Mickey catches his hoe of a wife in bed with a washed up has-been pitcher for the Tigers named Willie Fernandez, the distraught middle-aged working class hero shows up to work with a bottle of Johnny Walker Red and a shiny new crack pipe loaded with a nice big rock.

Mickey--who is (by the way) black--is tanked, baked, and out of his mind fucked-up, and he stumbles onto the elevated track of the powerful People Mover in search of who he is and what is important to him. But he can find nothing except the bottom of the bottle, and he takes a nap on the tracks. The beast of a train lurches along, toward Mickey, guaranteeing him a gruesome, lonely death. But he regains his senses just as the train is upon him. However, all he can do is close his eyes, fold his hands, and let out a prayer to a God that he is not quite sure is even above him. He pleads for salvation and mercy from the angels in Heaven, for he knows there is too much left for him to do on Earth--too many people he needs to tell how he feels.

The People Mover slices off both of Mickey's legs and mangles his face, rendering his physical appearance freakish, making the portly, graying man an unlovable monster.

But the People Mover does not do damage to his soul--in fact, if anything, the newly paraplegic Mickey feels more beautiful and full of life as his piping hot blood spews from his body, raining down onto the bums and others who pass underneath the elevated track of the People Mover.

After experiencing a life-affirming moment of clarity and nirvana, Mickey passes out only to come to in a Detroit hospital surrounded by an unlikely cast of characters who have come to his side. There is his crack dealer, Hank, who offers him a puff from the pipe--Mickey politely declines, as he now knows there is a better way to get high. There is also Stacey, his estranged illegitimate daughter who he is reunited with. She shares stories about her job at the front register at Catfish Corner as well as how she moonlights as a $20 street whore along Michigan Avenue. Finally, there are the people who saved him: Lt. Jimmy Jameson, an Iraq veteran who has returned from the Middle East without his left arm, but now heroically protects the streets of Detroit and luckily got to Mickey before certain death set it; and, of course, the young, arrogant Dr. Mahmood is there to explain to Mickey how lucky he is to survive (or unlucky in the sense that his medical bills are fucking out of control, and that Mickey will surely never walk or get laid again).

Mickey grows close to this motley crew, and discovers that it's not only the People Mover that can bring a low-down Detroiter to new and amazing heights, but sometimes it's simply people that do that.