Clock Dance

Anne Tyler’s “Clock-Dance” is a new novel by a classic of contemporary literature about hopes and sudden changes that happen in our lives.

Willa Drake’s life moved from milestone to milestone. 1967: she’s a schoolgirl trying to come to terms with her mother’s sudden disappearance. 1977: Willa is a college student and gets asked to marry. 1997: a young widow tries to put her life back together from shattered pieces. 2017: Willa longs to become a grandmother, but isn’t sure it will happen. “Is that all? Is that really what my life was?” she asks herself. She has already come to terms with the fact that her dreams stayed dreams—until a strange phone call interrupts everything: an unknown person makes her an unusual offer…

“Clock-dance” is a witty, funny, and a little bittersweet novel about how fate sometimes whirls us in its dance—and by dancing along this clock-dance, we seem to send time backward, so that we can finally find our way back to ourselves.