I Never Saw Paris A Novel of the Afterlife

9780786720545

0786720549

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 runs them all over. 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 to heaven, on their way to be greeted by the angel Malakh. Accompanying Irving are an attractive personal shopper in her early 50s; a grandmother who works as a housemaid nearby; a twentysomething man who is an interior decorator; and the driver, a candy store owner and widower. Bound together for a week with Malakh, before their souls will be allowed to move on for judgment, Irving and his fellow victims must all tell the group their life stories, in order to evaluate and justify their earthly existence. As their insecurities and deepest secrets are exposed, they argue at length, and yet come to a strange peace, in this unexpected parable. I Never Saw Paris is a funny, moving, and thought-provoking look at the foibles and follies of an improbable group of New Yorkers.