Ethan died and was welcomed into heaven by people whom one would normally expect to be bound for hell. He was met at the gate not by angels or saints but by shady, dubious characters of evil backgrounds, like one who was a satanic temple high priest while on earth, for instance.
Ethan initially wrestles with doubt and suspicion about his state—whether he was really dead—and about the strange characters he encountered and their motives. Slowly, he gets to accept that he has died and seeks to allay his distrust of the characters he ran into.
As he sets out to find the truth, he learns about the lives the people he met led while they were still living on earth and how they got saved and changed. As he listens to and converses with these individuals, he unsuspectingly sets out on a course that will eventually lead him to know and come to terms with his own ugly past.
The book examines the lives of people who were not necessarily Christians to begin with. While some books employ a different, much more secular concept of heaven, this book does not. It does, however, use an approach that would make conversations between the characters possible.
There are several parts of the book that I truly like. One of my favorite parts of the book was when the lead character dreamed of a tsunami engulfing him after he slayed a lamb. It is quite symbolic, and I think that readers who have the capability to visualize the scene would appreciate it.
“Never have I felt God being so near me my entire life as I did at that moment. Never in my life have I sensed the Lord’s presence as real as I did during that time.”