The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom

Val Penny ♦ December 21, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

The Time Keeper was written by Mitchell David Albom (Mitch Albom). He is an author, journalist, screenwriter, playwright, radio and television broadcaster and musician. Collectively, his books have sold over 35 million copies worldwide; have been published in forty-one territories and in forty-two languages around the world; and have been made into Emmy Award-winning and critically-acclaimed television movies. Yet he has his detractors who belittle his work. I am not one of those people.

I have read and enjoyed various books by Mitch Albom including, Tuesdays with Morrie which is reviewed here: https://bookreviewstoday.info/2014/03/26/tuesdays-with-morrie-by-mitch-albom/ , also one of my all time favourite books, The Five People you Meet in Heaven: https://bookreviewstoday.info/2013/12/20/the-five-people-you-meet-in-heaven-by-mitch-albom/ . So, when I noticed that his novel, The Time Keeper was in my local library, I borrowed it to read immediately.

The Time Keeper challenged my concept of time. On the face of it, Mitch Albom has written a simple little book with a clear message, but it much more profound than that. It is a story in which the inventor of the world’s first clock is punished for trying to measure God’s greatest gift: time. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years, more time. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time, as he is now known, is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time.

When he returns to the modern world, he commences a journey with two unlikely partners: one a teenage girl who is about to give up on life, the other a wealthy old businessman who wants to live forever. To save himself, Father Time must save them both.

Albom writes so eloquently yet keeps the prose simple. In The Time Keeper the author explores the passage of hours, days, and years through Father Time who learns the the true meaning of time in the contemporary world. The Time Keeper is a provocative, hope-filled novel and I highly recommend it.

Val Penny