Heaven Dot Com
by Michelle Gordon
Copyright: © 2007
66 Pages
$9.06 Paperback
$2.72 E-Book
One of the joys of using a service like Lulu is the chance to bring together a collection of your short stories or poems to publish just for friends and family (as I did with my poetry a few years ago) or to just have your writing out there to share with other readers who you don’t even know. Outside of writer blogs and forums, there’s no other service like it. After reviewing three story collections, I decided to search for someone who had just published one single story of theirs. I didn’t have to hunt long because someone who had done just that found the LLBR site instead. Her name is Michelle Gordon.
At 66 pages, Michelle’s story, Heaven Dot Com, reads like a nice little novella. Right from the beginning, the author sets her main character, Christina, up in a very mysterious situation that immediately draws the reader in. We are on a beach with Christina and her boyfriend James. Christina doesn’t want to leave, but James tells her she can’t stay here…just yet. There are certain clues that Michelle gives in the writing that let’s you know we are experiencing Christina’s dream. The soothing hypnotic calm of the setting alone quickly fades and the reader, with Christina, is thrown into a harsh reality when she wakes up in a hospital bed.
All of this takes place in the first two pages, and although the author has done a superior job of keeping the story moving throughout, I would have liked for the opening scene to play out just a bit longer. The beeping of James’s watch in the dream coincides with a monitor in the hospital room going off. Christina tells James in her dream that it “hurts her” and she asks him to turn it off. He says he can’t. Later, we realize in the dream, James is actually referencing the real life monitor in her room. These are excellent twists and play on words and scenes that I always like to see in a good story because they make the reader think. They display a superior craft of writing possessed by the author.
As Christina wakes up in her room, James enters and she tells him about her dream. The story begins to take on a nice Medium or Ghost Whisperer psychic-like theme for me, which are the kinds of stories I really enjoy these days. Christina wants James to take her out of the hospital and to the beach because she knows she is going to die (she has cancer), a nice sentimental scene much like the beloved movie Beaches.
The first chapter ends with a bit more of mystery as Christina asks if he has gotten all “the papers” in order. In Chapter 2, we meet the rests of Christina’s family as they come to visit and read her emails to her. The sad anticipation of Christina’s departure continues to build as she has a nurse move her over to the window to watch the sun set, James is stuck in traffic trying to get to her, a friend named Melanie is looking at a picture of her with Christina and recalling memories, and her brother Adam is sitting on the beach reminiscing of her. These different snapshots are not very long, but they are written so well that it’s just enough for us to get to know these characters in just the way the author intended. The writing and pace here is truly touching.
In Chapter 3, we learn more about those “papers” James was getting in order for Christina. She had asked him to set up an email address, angel@heaven.com, and she dictated letters to him which he will send to her friends and family for her. As the rest of the story plays out, we are treated to the situations among her loved ones as they receive their letters. The story comes to a nice climactic ending as the grieving James must face his feelings of loss over his love for Christina, with her spirit at his side.
As I said before, Michelle Gordon’s writing style is nicely paced. Her touching story reads like a Lifetime movie, stirring up the kinds of emotions within us that have made Mitch Albom a successful novelist. There are a few structure problems in the story, mainly formatting issues with the manuscript, but they do not distract from the overall read. I would love to see this writer really draw these scenes and characters out a bit more and maybe develop this into a full published novel.
