By: Sally Dunn

In Sometime Child, author Richard Bruce crafts a story that begins not with comfort or familiarity, but with fracture. Set in New York City, a place where extremes of wealth and hardship exist in close, uneasy proximity, the novel opens on a violent alleyway encounter that pulls three lives into sudden, irreversible contact. What follows is not a simple tale of crime and consequence, but a profoundly human exploration of class, trauma, forgiveness, and the fragile possibility of change.

Bruce makes a deliberate narrative choice from the outset: he introduces upheaval before understanding. Rather than easing readers into his characters’ lives, he thrusts them into a moment that reshapes everything that follows. As he explains, he intended to establish “a ‘before’…without hinting of the fact that the lives of each of the characters would change in unexpected ways as they interacted with each other.” At that early stage, he adds, he didn’t expect readers to feel “much in the way of hope for either of the assailants.”

That absence of early hope is intentional. It creates the emotional tension that, when it comes, allows transformation to feel earned rather than sentimental.

Fiction Informed by Real Lives

While Sometime Child is a work of fiction, its emotional truths are grounded in lived experience. Bruce’s perspective is shaped by years spent working with underserved youth. In 1999, he volunteered with a program supporting teenagers navigating unsafe neighborhoods, unstable home environments, and under-resourced schools. One relationship in particular left a lasting imprint.

His first student, he recalls, warned him that it wasn’t safe to visit her at home. “As I spent time with her, I came to understand the difficulties she faced firsthand,” Bruce says. Encounters like these provided the emotional foundation for the novel, informing its portrayal of young people forced to mature inside systems that offer little protection and even less forgiveness.

These experiences lend Sometime Child a quiet authenticity. The characters are not reduced to symbols or cautionary tales; they are rendered with the complexity of people shaped by circumstance but not defined solely by it.

Where Worlds Intersect

At the heart of the novel is an unlikely bond between a successful attorney and two teenage boys whose lives have unfolded along radically different paths. Their connection becomes a lens through which Bruce examines class division, not as an abstract concept, but as a lived reality that shapes opportunity, expectation, and self-worth.

Bruce is clear about what he hopes to illuminate: that young people, regardless of circumstance, “have the same dreams and hopes.” The novel asks what might happen if people from “wildly different backgrounds” were willing to spend the time and place to listen to each other.”

That listening, Bruce suggests, is transformative on both sides. “Those who have so little may find ways to improve their lives, while those with so much can find ways to be kind to others, so it can be a win/win.” In Sometime Child, connection becomes a two-way exchange, challenging assumptions while opening space for empathy and growth.

Forgiveness Without Illusion

Forgiveness is one of the novel’s most resonant themes, but Bruce approaches it without romanticism. For him, forgiveness is not about erasing harm; it is about refusing to be imprisoned by it. “Holding grudges is an extra weight that serves no purpose,” he says.

Many of the characters in Sometime Child carry visible and invisible burdens, mistakes, shame, anger, and fear. Bruce believes that beneath those burdens is often “the hidden desire to improve their lives.” What’s missing, he suggests, is not potential but opportunity: someone willing to listen, encourage, and imagine a different future alongside them.

New York City as Moral Landscape

The city itself functions as a silent but powerful presence in the novel. Bruce portrays New York as a place where proximity does not equal understanding, where people can live minutes apart yet inhabit entirely different realities. The city “allowed me to portray my main characters living or working just minutes apart but in totally different environments… environments that put a mark on their lives…good or bad that can be difficult to shed.”

In Sometime Child, the environment shapes identity but does not dictate destiny.

The Meaning Behind the Title

The title Sometime Child reflects both longing and resilience. Children raised in poverty are constantly exposed to what they lack—through media, culture, and daily experience. Yet, Bruce emphasizes, their aspirations mirror those of any child. He chose the title to express hope: the belief that “SOMETIME their dreams will come true,” and that there exists “a path that can make a child’s dreams come true.”

Walking the Line Between Darkness and Hope

Though the novel confronts violence, inequality, and loss, Bruce intentionally balances realism with optimism. “Despite all the turmoil and challenges in the world today…I wanted my book to be upbeat…but, at the same time, I wanted my book to be based in reality.” His aim was to “walk that line between evil and goodness,” trusting readers to engage honestly with both.

Ultimately, Sometime Child is an invitation to pause judgment, to recognize shared humanity, and to believe that change often begins in unexpected places.

As Bruce puts it, he hopes readers will understand “how important it is to avoid pre-judging and be empathetic to troubled children born into environments that they would not have chosen had they been able to do so.”

Sometime Child is available now on Amazon.