Ruby Pier is the amusement park on the ocean where Eddie works in maintenance for most of his life. A place of both great celebration and great pain for Eddie and others, the park represents the variety of experience in Eddie’s life. Ruby Pier, like Eddie’s life, is full of rides that bring joy and excitement, as well as dangerous risks and losses. At first the park stands only as a symbol of Eddie’s sense of failure, as throughout his life, Eddie has failed to achieve his goal of leaving Ruby Pier to create a better life for himself elsewhere. In heaven, however, Eddie learns from the little girl Tala that he was meant to be at Ruby Pier. His work at the park allowed him to save countless children from danger, thus giving him a chance to redeem himself for unknowingly killing Tala during the war.
Ruby Pier Quotes in The Five People You Meet in Heaven
His plans never worked out (…) Like his father before him, like the patch on his shirt, Eddie was maintenance – the head of maintenance – or as kids sometimes called him, “the ride man at Ruby Pier.”