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1-Page Summary of The Messenger
Overall Summary
A 19-year-old cab driver named Ed Kennedy is a nobody. However, he’s caught in the middle of a bank robbery and grabs the robber’s gun. For reasons unknown to him, he prevents the robber from escaping. The media hails him as a hero for his actions, but then quickly forgets about it and goes back to their normal lives. Then one night, Ed receives an envelope that contains an Ace of Diamonds with three addresses written on it.
Uncertain about who sent the card, Ed decides to visit the first address on it. At that house he witnesses a drunk man sexually assaulting his wife. He realizes the card wants him to help this woman and her daughter, but he feels unequipped to face the large man. So, he decides to move on to another address. At the next house, Ed meets Milla, an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s disease who believes Ed is her late husband. She makes him feel welcome in her home and they spend time together until she falls asleep one day while listening to music from a record player. Then he moves onto another address where he sees Sophie running barefoot in preparation for track meets; however she lacks confidence and always loses races because of that lack of confidence. Ed gives Sophie an empty shoe box which helps boost her self-confidence so now when she competes in track meets she has more self-esteem than before even though she still doesn’t win all of them due to lack of experience or talent as opposed to just not having enough confidence yet. Finally at his last stop back at the first house where everything started out, Ed still does not know how exactly what happened there will end up happening or if anything will happen at all since after all it was only a dream. One day a gun appears in his mailbox so then finally when things seem like they couldn’t get any worse, something good happens instead: A gun appears! And although it seems scary at first, its purpose is actually intended for good: It’s meant as protection against someone who might do harm !
Ed helps people on the Ace of Clubs card, and then returns home to find two masked men waiting for him. Keith and Daryl beat Ed up, take his gun, and give him a letter from the Ace of Clubs with three names written on it. The first name belongs to a priest who has helped many people in his community by throwing big parties at his church. The second person is a single mother who dedicates her life to her kids. Ed buys her an ice cream cone because he believes she deserves some time off as well. The final name leads Ed to Gavin, a teenage delinquent who frequently brawls with his older brother Daniel (who also happens to be named after one of the other cards). After fighting Gavin himself, Ed knows he’s completed all five tasks on the Ace of Clubs card.
Ed receives the Ace of Spades at a football game. It has the names of three authors on it, but Ed can’t read them yet because he is distracted by his girlfriend Audrey rejecting him again. After looking back down at the card, Ed discovers that each author wrote a book about one of the streets in his town and decides to go help people based on what their books say they need most. He helps an impoverished family have more beauty in their lives by buying Christmas lights for them; then he goes to visit his mother who is dating someone else after her husband died only last year; when she reveals why she hates Ed so much, they reconcile and go together to help Bernie who runs an old theater with some financial problems; while watching a movie there with Audrey, Ed sees himself helping other people from cards delivered earlier in different places across town. The screen suddenly shows video footage of those events recorded by cameras hidden around the city which are controlled remotely via computer from an unknown location where another person watches everything through multiple screens like CCTV monitors or security camera feeds all over town (maybe even via Google Earth).
