How it Starts
The novel I Am the Messenger was written by Markus Zusak in 2002. The story starts off with nineteen-year-old Ed Kennedy caught in the middle of a bank robbery. Almost immediately, the reader is hooked from the first sentence: “The gunman is useless”. Ed spends his days playing cards with his best friends and driving taxis. He has no true meaning in his life. Every day is the same for Ed Kennedy. Pointless. He is hopelessly in love with a girl named Audrey, who doesn’t seem to love him back. Until one day when a mysterious card appears in his mailbox. It’s an ace of diamonds with three addresses and times written on the back. Confused, Ed spends the day wondering who could have sent such a thing.
What Ed Does
Eventually, he finds the courage to go to these places at specific times and see what is there, or more importantly, who. What Ed finds at the first address shocks him. He retreats and moves on to the other two addresses. Now he finds an old woman in desperate need of a friend and a girl who needs to take a step in the right direction. Ed has found a new meaning in life: helping people. Even if it’s the smallest gesture, he feels completely different. Like he has a purpose. Ed receives more and more cards (one spade, one club, and one heart) after he delivers his messages. He struggles with some of them as they can be difficult to accomplish; depending on the task and the person in need. He’s sent to do all kinds of things for people, from buying Christmas lights for a poor family to helping two brothers stop beating each other up, to filling up an empty church for a priest. One of the messages he finds is even about his mother. Ed’s perspective on life is truly changed forever when he says: “Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.”
This novel is fast-paced and definitely interesting. I recommend this book for fans of The Book Theif. I am the Messenger tells a story like no other. A man and his search for meaning make for a truly spectacular novel.
Written by Emily Mack
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