These are the schematics of the book. But while the love story is great (a guy willing to spend his life in Hell rather than Heaven only to be with his loved one), there are many more things to the book than that. The imageries of Heaven and Hell are very powerfully depicted. Not only that but the author has managed to create about the only afterlife I’d ever read about that made me actually want to be there or at least look forward to it. Because he sees Heaven not only as a beautiful place where one can have anything he wants (though in Matheson’s heaven there are some limitations), but also a place where one’s goal is to keep growing spiritually. There is work to be done (else even Heaven can be boring), there are libraries, museums, conferences, and above all caring and helpful people. As for the Hell, it is mainly seen as a place of black despair. Dark, smelly, with deformed people. What’s beautiful about Matheson’s Hell is the fact that anyone can escape it, they only have to accept their shortcomings and to want to move on.

About the characters, obviously the most well-shaped of them all is Chris, the narrator of the story. We get to see both Heaven and Hell through his eyes. While far from perfect, he’s a rather strong character. Actually no, scratch that, he does have strength but he derives it from his love of Ann. You can’t not feel for him though. :) As for Ann, she is more like a secondary character as we only get to actually see her in the last pages, while she’s facing her personal Hell. We do get glimpses of her in Chris memories and thoughts about her all throughout the book though.

There is also a movie made after this book, which happens to be my personal favorite (and the reason of my interest in the book).

A quote from the book:

It struck me then; I don’t know why it took so long. I looked around in awe. “Then … this is heaven?””
“Heaven. Homeland. Harvest. Summerland,” he said. “Take your choice.”
I felt foolish for asking but had to know. “Is it a—country? A state?”
He smiled. “A state of mind.”
I looked at the sky. “No angels,” I said, conscious of only half joking.
Albert laughed. “Can you conceive of anything more cumbersome than wings attached to shoulder blades?” he asked.
“Then there are no such things?” Again, I felt naive for asking but was too curious to repress the question.
“There are if one believes in them,” he said, confusing me again. “As I said, this is a state of mind. What does that motto on the wall of your office say? That which you believe becomes your world.”

A quote from the producer of the movie:

Just before we commenced pre-production of Somewhere in Time (late 1978), Richard asked me if I wanted to read the galleys of a new book he had written. Of course, I was thrilled. Early that evening, I read What Dreams May Come for the first time. I read it in one sitting and cried—no, sobbed—all the way through. When I finished, I felt like I had gone through an initiation into mysteries of love and life that I had been looking for forever. I didn’t sleep that night. In the wee hours, I read the book again, and sobbed through it again. In that moment, I became a conscious metaphysician and a man determined to find a way to bring the most unique love story ever written to the screen;

And a tiny bit of trivia: the bulk of the novel (everything Chris narrated) is said to be dictated by him from “the other side” to a “sensitive” woman (meaning she had some abilities which enabled her to hear him) and brought by her to his brother Robert, so that he’ll make it public so that people will know what to expect (“I hope it is published and read by many. I hope that, at the very least, a few people are prepared for the inevitable transition which will take place at the end of their lives.“). In the other book written by Richard Matheson that I’ve read (Somewhere in Time) the bulk of the book is also written by the main character and found also by his brother, also Robert who also published it :)

Written by the same author:
I Am Legend
Somewhere in Time

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