When Mitch Albom met his wife, Janine, at a restaurant and nightclub in Detroit in 1988, he was a young sportswriter getting over a breakup with an ex-fianceé, unsure if he’d ever find love. Albom came to the club at the urging of a friend, who wanted to fix him up with Janine’s sister—but that plan went sideways when Janine arrived. “I was at the table, eating a Caesar salad, when Janine walked in and said, ‘Are you going to finish that?’ ” Albom recalls over Zoom from his home in Detroit. “That was the first thing she said to me. I told her she could have the salad. By the time the night was over, I said to my friend, ‘I don’t think it’s going to work out with the one you brought me here to meet, but I really like the sister.’ ”
Albom and Janine have been married for 30 years and have a three-year-old daughter, Nadie, who came to them in 2022 from Have Faith Haiti, an orphanage in Port-au-Prince that the couple has operated since 2010. Since meeting Janine, love has permeated Albom’s life—and it’s the subject of his new novel, Twice, a story inspired by his marriage, out in October from Harper. “I’m definitely an I-love-you person,” Albom says. “I must say it 50 times a day to the people in my life. I overdo it probably.”
A doer by nature, Albom is an author, screenwriter, journalist, radio and podcast host, musician (he plays piano in his office during writing breaks), and a philanthropist and founder of SAY Detroit, which oversees nine charitable operations in the city. His wise and witty books explore love and loss, death and heartache, and examine what it means to live with gratitude and purpose. His 1997 hit Tuesdays with Morrie—widely considered the bestselling memoir of all time—chronicles his relationship with Morrie Schwartz, his former college professor who, in the weeks leading up to his death, sat with Albom for a series of conversations about life. His books, which include The Five People You Meet in Heaven and The Little Liar, have sold more than 41.5 million copies, according to Harper, and have been translated into 49 languages.
Albom’s magical latest, Twice, is a story of romance and redemption that’s centered on Philly native Alfie Logan, a man with the ability to redo any moment in his life one time—but who must live with the consequences of his second try, no matter the outcome. There’s one caveat: Alfie can’t redo love; if he ends a relationship, his ex will never love him again in the same way. “We always have that fantasy, that a second chance is going to be better,” Albom says. “I wanted to write about that, and about love. If we’re honest, that’s what we probably ask ourselves the most questions about—am I with the right person? Am I really in love?”
Born in Passaic, N.J., Albom, 67, was a daydreamer who didn’t start speaking until he was more than three years old. (“One day, according to my mother, I came into the room and said, ‘I can see my hand, why can’t I see my face?’ ” he says.) He spent his days drawing and, at 10, taught himself to play piano. “My whole life has been a creative river,” he says.
In 1979, Albom earned a BA in sociology from Brandeis University, then worked for a time as a musician in the U.S. and Europe. He moved to New York City in his 20s and got an MA in journalism and an MBA, both from Columbia University. In 1985, he moved to Detroit and began covering sports for the Detroit Free Press and writing books.
Albom wrote two sports titles—Bo (1989), an autobiography of football coach Bo Schembechler, and Fab Five (1993), about the University of Michigan men’s basketball team—before he published his breakout, Tuesdays with Morrie. Albom saw a TV segment in 1995 about Morrie Schwartz, and learned that his onetime beloved professor was dying of ALS. The author paid Schwartz a visit, and the idea for a book about their time together was born soon after.
When he’s writing a novel, Albom keeps the plot under wraps. Karen Rinaldi, his editor, always reads his manuscripts a few chapters at a time—as he’s writing them and sending them in. “Mitch won’t tell me where a book is going,” Rinaldi says. “I read pages and he leaves me with a cliffhanger. He’s one of the best storytellers I’ve ever worked with.”
Albom also keeps his wife guessing. “I don’t think Janine has ever actually read one of my books because I read them to her, but only after I’ve finished them,” he says. “When I read Twice to her she smiled and gave me a kiss. That was as good of a review as I’m going to get. My only regret of having a book come out this fall is having to miss going to a lot of Detroit Lions games.”
Twice moves back and forth across decades and covers the scope of Alfie’s life, beginning in the 1960s, when, as a boy, his dying mother tells him about his gift. As he grows up, Alfie uses his power to stop bullies, attract girls, and defy death. Things get complicated when he falls for Gianna. The pair moves to New York City, and Alfie tries to make it as a musician and writer, but when he gets tempted to cheat, he risks making a mistake he can’t undo. Throughout the story, Albom considers the benefits and pitfalls of getting second chances. “We live in a world of envy, always seeing people who we think have it better,” he says. “It just may be that you have to stop thinking about those other worlds and live the best way in this one.”
David Black, Albom’s agent, has been by the author’s side for 40 years. “Representing Mitch has been my PhD in this business,” Black says. “Mitch is brilliant, generous, intense, and a craftsman. I don’t believe he’s been celebrated for the quality of his work the way he should be.”
Helping others, especially children, is as important to Albom as publishing books. He’s deeply invested in Have Faith Haiti, and wrote about the orphanage in his 2019 memoir, Finding Chika, which concerns a little girl from the orphanage whom he and his wife cared for before she died in 2017 from a brain tumor. “I don’t understand why I’d have this success,” Albom says, “unless it’s to help other people.”
Some years back, Albom purchased the house next to his home in Detroit and uses it to provide accommodations for kids from the orphanage, who come to the U.S. to attend school or receive medical care. And, three years ago, he and his wife took in Nadie. “She’s an astonishment every day to me,” Albom says. “Whip-smart, musical, big vocabulary. She’s the joy of our lives.”
Seeing his wife with his daughter has made Albom appreciate Janine even more. “After 30 years of marriage, you don’t think you’re going to find a new thing to love about your wife, then you do,” he says. He wouldn’t change a moment. “There’s a lot of love in my life right now. Love is oxygen.”
Elaine Szewczyk’s writing has appeared in McSweeney’s and other publications. She’s the author of the novel I’m with Stupid.
