Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his newest book
-
Scott LaMar
Aired; December 14th, 2023.
Mitch Albom is the author of books that have sold more than 40 million copies, including eight New York Times number one best-sellers.
Several are considered classics like Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
Appearing on The Spark Thursday, Albom talked about his latest book — a novel called The Little Liar,”The Little Liar is a novel set during World War II, narrated by the Voice of Truth. And the little liar is actually a boy who lives in a Greek city who, until he’s 11, has never told a lie in his life. And there’s a little girl in the town who loves him for it. And then when the Nazis invade, they discover his reputation and they decide to use him as a weapon. And they trick him into standing on the railroad tracks and telling all the people in his town that the trains are going to new homes and new jobs and that everything’s going to be good and they should get on them. And he does this thinking, telling the truth and believing that if he does this, they’ll let him go back to his family. And only on the very last day does he see his family and the little girl shoved into a boxcar and he finds out that these trains are actually going out, but in the concentration camp and he realizes that the first lie that he’s ever told in life is actually going to be the worst lie he’s ever going to tell. And the book follows him and the little girl and the family for the next 40 years and shows the consequences of that single lie on that single day and how it affected him, the girl, the family, even the Nazi who tricked him. It ultimately becomes a story about forgiveness and hope against that backdrop. But has the question of the truth and how precious the truth is and what happens when we pervert it.”
When asked whether the timing of the book’s release was influenced by the misinformation and disinformation we’re subjected to everyday, Albom responded,”I can’t take any credit for the fact that it comes out during a time when suddenly anti-Semitism and echoes of the past are prevalent. Because I started a couple of years ago, no one would have known that. But but I did know that we live in a time where people are choosing their own truth and, they listen to one cable TV channel and don’t listen to any of the others, or they read one paper, they follow one through social media thing. And we live in a time where at that famous expression goes a lie told once is easily seen as a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth. And, we see how quickly on the Internet and in social media and Twitter and the like, how a single lie can be shot across the world before truth gets its pants on. And and so I thought this is absolutely a time for a book narrated by the Voice of Truth that talks about — look at what you’re doing to me. Look at how you’re ruining me and destroying me.”
Beginning with his book Tuesdays With Morrie, Albom has been viewed as one of the world’s iconic writers. Here’s what he said about his writing career,”I’ve had a very fortunate career and it’s been very varied. And I meet people who say, Oh, I just knew you from ESPN, I didn’t even know you wrote books. And these other people say, I only know you from your books. I didn’t even know you covered sports. And so I’ve had a lot of different lives, but I’ve been very blessed to meet some very influential people like Morrie Schwartz, who was the story of Tuesdays with Morrie. And I think that that was kind of a turning point in my life when I was able to sit with a man who was dying from Lou Gehrig’s disease and hear what was important in life and what wasn’t once he was going to die. And I never forgot those lessons that I wrote. I wrote that book not to become a bestseller. I wrote it to help pay his medical bills and to have something personal for me to remember. And the fact that it became a big bestseller was sort of accidental. But it also taught me that those themes are really important to people, and I’ve been writing books that sort of touch on them ever since. And the fact that they find a wide audience is a blessing. But, I don’t think it’s me. I think it’s the themes that I write about. And, that’s why people embrace the work.”
