The Time Keepers

Writing with intent to traditionally publish is a long and tortuous journey. For every starry eyed, young person with a glossy write up in Publisher’s Marketplace detailing how they got a 6 figure deal at auction on their debut novel which they wrote in two months or less, there is an army full of writers with much more typical journeys – a few novels to sign with an agent, a round or seven on submission before one of their works receives a modest offer (sometimes with an agent switch in the middle there), and even more hard work and uncertainty before people consider them as having “broken out.” What typically separates a writer who is going to survive and a writer that gives up is not talent – it’s their friend group.

Alyson Richman’s new historical fiction The Time Keepers demonstrates how individuals across cultural barriers can come together over shared interests. The novel is told in several viewpoints – a 1979 suburban Irish housewife who married a Jewish man in NY, her teenage daughter, a Vietnam refugee caring for her orphaned nephew, and a war vet who cannot bear to return home thanks to the facial scarring he sustained in the war. At first it would seem like these people would make an unlikely peer group, yet over the course of the story we find them building a strong and lasting community of support around each other. At its center is the watch store that helps heal them all.

At first glance, my primary writing group would also not be people you’d throw together at a dinner party. Despite our very different backgrounds, through our shared interest in writing we have bonded and expanded each others lives. We support each other through this journey. I understand that querying, submission, and debuting are not exactly on par with the Vietnam War, but the everyday ways in which we connect remind me of the characters in the Time Keepers. Just as two characters bond over the similarities and cultural meanings in matzah ball soup and pho, I cannot reach for the jar of red boat fish sauce in my cabinet without thinking about my writing buddy who introduced me to it. As the characters strive to protect the children in their lives, I am reminded about how our group’s talk of pacing and one page plot summaries somehow drifted into the state of child care in various countries.

Human connection is possible across cultural and religious divides, because the human experience belongs to all of us. The Time Keepers reminds readers to reach out and form those connections, offer and receive support, despite initial hardship. After all, isn’t that what this entire reading and writing thing is about?

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