Columnists are a suspicious and resentful lot. We're paid to get up on the wrong side of the bed and to write about it with wit and verve. The only thing we hate more than the public's expectation that we be consistently readable are columnists who become zillionaires dwelling on the bright side of life.

That's why Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press inspires so much professional jealousy. Albom is a terrific columnist, but he burned his bridges with many of his fellow journalists by writing shameless crowd-pleasers that folks actually enjoy reading. The cur!

Albom could've retired to a chalet in France on the profits from "Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson," but, no, he kept his newspaper job and wrote another best seller just to watch us die from envy.

David Brooks, a New York Times columnist and himself a best selling author, slapped Albom around earlier this month for what he calls the "soft-core spirituality" of his latest book "The Five People You Meet in Heaven." This is remarkable because there's no more genteel columnist in the business than Brooks -- and even he hates Albom.

I've yet to actually read Albom's books so I'm in no position to judge the validity of Brooks' argument. Still, I'm not crazy about any book with a feel-good premise. As a rule, I gravitate toward writers who specialize in making people feel bad about the human condition. Give me Kierkegaard and Dostoevski or give me Xanax.

Still, every now and then, the idea of writing a book with mass appeal tempts me with a Faustian allure. While the soon-to-be-obscure literary novel I've been working on keeps me biting my nails from existential dread, it's tempting to fantasize about what an Albom-sized payday would look like on my terms. Yesterday, a colleague who was feeling melancholy suggested a title: "The Five People You Meet in Hell."

The title is pure genius and appropriate because the final installment of the "Left Behind" series hits bookstores today. "Glorious Appearing," Tim LaHaye's and Jerry Jenkins' much anticipated novel about Christ's return will probably suck up as much cash as the latest Harry Potter novel.

"The Five People You Meet in Hell" could be perfectly positioned to exploit the public's contradictory fascination with Albom-style New Age spirituality and the fire-and-brimstone prophecy of LaHaye and Jenkins.

I envision "The Five People You Meet in Hell" as an ongoing series of optimistic novels with an apocalyptic edge. Each book will chronicle the trials of characters "caught in the hands of an angry Zeitgeist." Since, according to Jean-Paul Sartre, "hell is other people," it might be fun to explore this notion.

The first installment of the series will be about the "Reverse Rapture" of a U.S. attorney general whose predilection for sanctimony and nosiness puts him in conflict with God and the Constitution.

During a gallbladder operation, the attorney general's spirit leaves his body and wanders into a room with no doors or windows. Instead of "ascending to glory" as expected, he comes face-to-face with a deluded man who calls himself Lucifer.

The attorney general knows he'll never get out of the room if he can't convince "Lucifer" that contrary to 4,000 years of bad press, he's really a "misunderstood archetype with self-esteem issues." The series will explore whether lying and cheating for short-term political and metaphysical profit is ever justified, even in the name of "beating the devil."

Each installment of the series will build on this theme by introducing another hypocrite into the mix until five souls who expected front row seats in heaven are huddled together in the now shrinking room. It will change the course of literary history. Or maybe not.

Hmmm, maybe I should stick to my day job and leave the parables to Mitch Albom.