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I wrote THE CHRISTMAS LIST with two objectives: First, I wanted to explore what could happen if someone read their obituary before they died and saw, first hand, what the world really thinks of them. Their legacy.
Second, I wanted to write a Christmas story of true redemption. One of my family’s holiday traditions is to see a local production of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it (perhaps a dozen) but it still thrills me to see the change that comes over Ebenezer Scrooge as he transforms from a dull, tight-fisted miser into a penitent, “giddy-as-a-schoolboy” man with love in his heart. I always leave the show with a smile on my faceand a resolve to be a better person. That’s what I wanted to share with you, my dear readers, this Christmas–a holiday tale to warm your seasons, your homes and your hearts.
Merry Christmas,
Richard Paul Evans
Read the first chapter of THE CHRISTMAS LIST
CHAPTER ONE
SATURDAY, THREE WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS
James Kier looked back and forth between the newspaper headline and the photograph of himself, not sure if he should laugh or call his attorney. He had seen the picture before. It was the same photograph the Tribune had used a couple years earlier when they featured him on the front page of the business section. He had worn a silver, herringbone weave Armani over a black silk T-shirt, the corner of an ebony silk handkerchief peeked strategically from the breast pocket. The black and white photograph was carefully posed and lighted to leave half his face in shadow. The photographer, a black-clad young Japanese man with a shock of bright pink hair, chose to shoot the picture in black and white because, in the photographer’s words, he was “going for a yin yang effect—to fully capture Kier’s inner complexities”. The photographer was good at his craft. Kier’s expression revealed a leaky confidence.
While the photograph was the same, the headline could not have been more different. Not many people get to read their own obituary.
Utah Real Estate developer James Kier was pronounced dead after his car collided with a concrete pilon on southbound I-80. Rescue workers labored for more than an hour to remove the Salt Lake man’s body from the wreckage. Authorities believe Kier may have had a heart attack prior to swerving off the road.
Kier was the president of Kier construction, one of the West’s largest real estate development firms. He was known as a fierce, oftentimes ruthless, businessman. He once said, “If you want to make friends, join a book club. If you want to make money, go into business. Only a fool confuses the two.”
Kier is survived by his son, James Kier II, and his wife, Sara. See page 1 of the business section for more on James Kier.
Kier lay the paper down. Some idiot’s going to lose his job over this, he thought.
He had no idea what the article was about to set in motion.