I Am the Messenger
This is Ed's story. As an underage cab driver, he believes he is a nobody and he lets everyone around him convince him that he is doing nothing with his life. After catching a bank robber, Ed is suddenly brought into the spotlight as a hero. That's when the mysterious playing cards start to arrive with their equally mysterious messages.
As I read this book, I couldn't help but be surprised that it was considered to be a young adult novel and that it had won the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award. The story has a deep message; but it is not a story that would be picked up and read for pleasure. I have to admit that it's a novel that could become part of a High School or College English curriculum. It is a book to be studied, not really enjoyed.
Ed is an underage cab driver. His father was a no-good drunk and his mother a foul-mouthed crank. His sisters and brother did well and left the no-name small town. His mother is proud of them; but she is obviously not proud of Ed, the cab driver who loves to read, keeps company with a bunch of losers and a smelly, old dog.
I don't really like Ed and his friends at the beginning of the novel. It's not that they do very little; it's more that they are content with doing little. No job should ever be considered mediocre. We need people to do all these jobs. We can't expect everyone to be highly paid executives, famous scientists, teachers or movie stars. But everyone, no matter what his or her occupation, has the potential of doing something good in this life. That really is the message. The job you do to earn a decent wage is not what makes you a person, it's what you do to help others along life's difficult road that defines you as a person.
Ed is sent messages on playing cards, because he regularly plays cards with his friends. The messages send him to help people — like Milla, the old lady who still misses her one true love who died in the war so many years ago; and Sophie, the runner who never wins a race, but loves to run barefoot; and the father who lives in a dump, cares for the downtrodden and accepts an empty church week after week as his lot in life. Ed changes things for all these people, and for others. His method varies for each person and his messages are often delivered very creatively, until, in the end, Ed discovers what we already knew, that he is a somebody and he is the message as are we all.
