HEAVENLY

In Duffy’s fantasy novel, an ordinary man is sent from heaven back to Earth, reborn into a new body.

John Robinson is middle-aged, underemployed, and unremarkable when he’s struck by a stray bullet and killed. He then enters a farcical and vaguely bureaucratic afterlife with “officers” and “assistants” filling in rank-and-file positions in an office-park heaven. Because he lived such a mundane life, Andrea—one of God’s main subordinates and the officer in charge of John’s file—informs him that his case for getting into heaven is on shaky ground. In a show of benevolence, however, God and his team agree to give John a do-over, returning him to Earth in the form of an infant named Peter but giving him a strict timeline of “40-years to find a wife, a family, and a good job to support them” and, of course, none of his memories from his past life or of his time in heaven. This novel begins with a fun, tongue-in-cheek romp through the afterlife—a diverting, if familiar, concept. However, it fails to maintain its momentum. Duffy’s prose is strongest in the managerial world of heaven; the scenes there feel lively, with tongue-in-cheek idioms like “the big guy,” referring to God, and John’s entire life slimmed down to a small file (“I read it quickly but know all the details very well,” Andrea blithely remarks). Yet the depiction of heaven is just a framing device for what is ultimately a predictable and rather preachy tale. John-as-Peter fumbles through life, working at a dead-end job in a Catholic high school and failing to make meaningful romantic connections—until he meets Teresa, a stereotypical sex worker with a heart of gold, with whom he starts to form an earnest relationship. Although the narrative has a ticking clock, the story of Peter’s life and hopeful redemption is just as unengaging as John’s previous existence. The often stilted prose in these sections doesn’t help, nor does the character’s post-reincarnation proselytizing, although more devout readers may warm to this novel’s religious overtones.

An awkwardly executed work with a by-the-numbers plot.