Timekeeper

by John Atkinson

Book Overview

USA Today, July 26th, 2007 - by Mel Mathews - Timekeeper is a magnificent tale of a young boy who can't read, or at least he hasn't found the means to do so up to this point in his life. Misunderstood... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0977607658
• ISBN13: 9780977607655
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Fisher King Press
• Length: 238 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.7" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Outstanding Book

Timekeeper is a deeply moving book that made me want to learn more about the author and his beliefs. This book reveals the dangerous journey across the country of a strong and resourceful young man who leaves a disfunctional home at the age of 14. Check and the Chief are characters that grow bigger than life as the poignant story is revealed. With vivid and memorable descriptions of the land and the people he met along the way, Atkinson shows great skill in his storytelling. He has made me look forward to the release of his next book. Mary Montague Sikes Author of Eagle Rising, Hearts Across Forever, Hotels to Remember

My all time favorite book

Timekeeper is the gift name given our struggling young man by his Indian mentor, but it's Check the dog who taught him life's lessons. In exchange for his companionship and protection Check demanded respect for his own needs and attitudes. John Atkinson does belong with J.D. Salinger and other coming of age authors because he's that talented, but his very special experiences and traumas have a plateau all their own. You'll be better for knowing them and for discovering this great new talent.

A pure seeker on a wondrous path

Johnnyboy leaves an abusive, highly disfunctional home at fourteen to survive and to discover who he is. He isn't too far from home when he concludes that "like to many people I met along the way, I took bits and pieces of advice from those who offered. Some advice was good and some was not. In order to survive, I became street smart in a hurry." After meeting Chief in Oklahoma, Johnnyboy--now known as Timekeeper--becomes a pure seeker on a wondrous path of "spiritual business." With Check, his four-legged companion, he travels close-in to the realm of instinct, simple trust, and an ethusiastic determination to connect with the sights and spirits and good people along the road. As a seeker, Johnnyboy is pure, for he learns by first-hand experience (rather than by reading about what other people's journeys were like) and the almost-destined assistance of those on the road who offer to help. While it's tempting to say John Atkinson's "Timekeeper" is like this book and that book, I'm convinced such comparisons as apt and flattering as they may be, are the very opposite of what this book is about and would only dilute the originality and magic of this luminous novel.

An Important New Coming of Age Novel: An Important New Author

`It's more humane to face a firing squad than a classroom, humiliated because of illiteracy.' This opening sentence of TIMEKEEPER by new author (to this reader) John Atkinson begins a journey so deeply moving and profound, yet so utterly simply told that the book suggests Atkinson may enter the echelon of writers known for important Coming of Age novels. Such writers whose message and transference is tangential include James Joyce's `Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man', Betty Smith's `A Tree Grows in Brooklyn', JD Salinger's `Catcher in the Rye', Robert McCammon's `Boy's Life', Cormac McCarthy's `All the Pretty Horses', Sue Monk Kidd's `The Secret Life of Bees', Jamie O'Neill's `At Swim, Two Boys' - a rather disparate group of books in style but related in topic - and I'm sure every reader has others of equal impact. Time, of course, will determine his longevity of importance, but at the moment John Atkinson appears to be a new voice whose book should find a very wide audience. Johnnyboy is a 14-year-old sensitive, handsome, sadly illiterate half-breed Indian who flees his severely dysfunctional Virginia family - his helpless but loving Cherokee Mama and his physically abusive father Bugdaddy - to find his place in the universe. His journey on foot and by car introduces him to Chief, a wise old Indian who sees into Johnnyboy's soul and with the aid of hallucinogenic mescal introduces the now named Timekeeper to the ways toward the path of life. The book is a road trip peppered with people, both kind and wise and evil and ignorant, who offer Timekeeper valuable lessons, both occult and temporal, as Timekeeper searches for his true identity and purpose. His constant companion is Check, a gray dog who seems from another time plane but who becomes Timekeeper's confidant and protector. Timekeeper's search reaches a tense denouement and a poignant climax as the now solitary lad accepts his place and purpose in the windswept soul of the Universal spirit. It is a journey fraught with hardship, danger, comic relief, heartwarming encounters, and above all the discovery of a boy becoming a man who accepts the gifts of the people who touch his life. John Atkinson is able to relate this story in the first person, and as Timekeeper is illiterate and nearly childlike in his beginning, the style of writing fits the character like a glove. As Timekeeper matures during his journey, so does the writing style, becoming far more rich in the etching of atmosphere and the terrain of the country Timekeeper and Check traverse. That is a difficult feat and Atkinson proves it can be done. This is an important book from an important writer. It will be very interesting to see where he goes from this auspicious debut. Grady Harp, September 07

USA Today July 26th, 2007 - Better Get Ready 'cause the Timekeeper's Coming to Town!

Recently, I was privileged to preview a forthcoming title that is to be available in December of 2007. Within the first few pages, John Atkinson's Timekeeper had weaved its essence around my heart and refused to let me go. Written in the same spirit as Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, Timekeeper is a magnificent tale of a young boy who can't read, or at least he hasn't found the means to do so up to this point in his life. Misunderstood by his teachers and elders, and physically beaten into the ground by his father, Johnnyboy runs away from home at the age of fourteen and sets off into the unknown to find himself. What he couldn't find in his own father, the universe provides for him in a multitude of miraculous ways. In spite of all his suffering and adversities, Johnnyboy's spirit remains in tact... better yet, like a boxer taking a relentless barrage of punches, he spits his beating into the ringside pail and comes out dancing like never before into the next rounds/chapters of this magnificent tale of redemption. Readers, Booksellers, Journalist, Reviewers, Critics, and even you Movie Makers, about all I can tell you is, 'Better get ready 'cause the Timekeeper is coming to town!" USA Today, July 26th, 2007