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In a raft after a deadly ship explosion, ten people struggle for survival at sea. Short on water, food and low on hope, they spot a man floating in the water after three days, whom they pull in.
“Thank the Lord we found you,” a passenger says.
“I am the Lord,” the man whispers.
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For the first time in his work of fiction, Mitch Albom wonders what we would do if, after crying out for help from God, God actually appeared before us?
In The Stranger in the Lifeboat, Albom keeps us guessing until the end: Is this strange man really who he claims to be? What actually happened to cause the explosion? Are the survivors in heaven, or are they in hell? The story is narrated by Benji, one of the passengers, who recounts the events in a notebook that is discovered—a year later—when the empty life raft washes up on the island of Montserrat. It falls to the island’s chief inspector, Jarty LeFleur, a man battling his own demons, to solve the mystery of what really happened.
A compelling novel, The Stranger in the Lifeboat suggests that answers to our prayers may be found where we least expect them. This novel explores the idea that prayers are heard, even if the answer is not what we may want, and encourages us to find faith in moments of total desperation. At the very end of the narrative, however, the little girl the group had been calling Alice reveals that it is she, in fact, who is the Lord — telling that the previous stranger had been an angel or messenger through whom she had spoken, much like Jesus.
