Literary Fiction, Thriller Pacing

A small Southern town. A restless boy. An embittered father. And late one night, a careless mistake.

Aspiring teenage filmmaker Josh Lovejoy,uncharacteristically high one night, hits a jogger. It is not any jogger, but David Masters, a popular local activist in the small town of Milledge, Georgia.The accident puts Masters in the hospital in a coma, and shatters the fragile equilibrium of the Lovejoy family. Josh's father, Hal, a clockmaker who keeps timepieces running with a passion he fails to bring to his marriage, retreats to his clock shop. Helen Lovejoy, a dedicated mother and amateur painter, falls into a depression. A shocked Josh reluctantly takes up his court-ordered community service work with disabled children. Meanwhile, comatose David is visited by the ghost of singer Peggy Lee, while his childless wife, Meg, an elementary school teacher, tries to imagine her life without him. In her grief,Meg becomes obsessed with the Lovejoy family.

As the adults around him try to find their footing, Josh indulges in dreams of his future as a famous filmmaker. In love with an unstable girl and estranged from his parents, Josh follows her to New York City, where, overwhelmed, he makes a fateful decision that puts him beyond the help of those who love him.

Set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights era and the New South, The Timekeeper's Son weaves the lives of these five characters together exposing hidden learning disabilities, broken dreams, complicated relationships, and communication difficulties. It explores themes of grief and forgiveness, isolation and connection, masks and disguises, all while depicting its characters' lives with tender intimacy. Written with a poet's sensibility to language and imagery, with impeccable pacing, and with elements of both the thriller and magical realism, this is a singular novel not to be missed.