As Kevin Ma ’13 sought to explore his experiences at boarding school in writing, his competitive relationship with a previous roommate at Andover inspired his novel, “A Silent Clock.” Ma published the novel last June.
The novel describes the fictional boarding school experience of Thomas Walther, a cynical sophomore at the fictional Kingsley School. At the Kingsley School, Walther gets caught up in a competition with his roommate to gain entrance into a prestigious secret society.
“The protagonist’s roommate was inspired by my old roommate. The two share numerous idiosyncrasies,” wrote Ma in an e-mail to The Phillipian.
Ma said that Walther’s activities and experiences in the novel reflect his own at Andover.
“Much of the challenges and the characters are paralleled from my experience at Andover. Though the protagonist is cynical in his scrutinies of the school and the people around him, much of his opinions are my own, though exaggerated to a substantial extent. The only difference is that the book involves a secret society and a different storyline,” said Ma in his e-mail.
As Walther navigates his academic and personal challenges, he alludes to the main faults of boarding schools, noting subjectivity in grading and high levels of stress, according to Ma.
“[Pointing out the flaws at boarding schools] was the ultimate goal of my book. I didn’t want [the novel] to be cynical, that simply ended up being a trait of the main character. I simply pointed out, with a reasonable level of objectivity, the flaws of boarding school,” wrote Ma.
“I see Andover with an overall positive outlook, but for the sake of the protagonist and his shift towards madness, it was ultimately more suitable to portray [The Kingsley School] in a rather negative light,” Ma said in his e-mail.
Ma read Joseph Heller’s novel “Catch-22” while writing “A Silent Clock.” Ma said that Heller’s sarcastic writing style influenced his own writing. “[“Catch 22”] has sort of a playful, somewhat of a sarcastic tone [that] I tried to put in my book,” said Ma.
Ma began writing without a specific outline, knowing only that he wanted to write about boarding school. His initial drafts did not include aspects central to the final product, such the role secret societies play in his novel. Ma said that he rewrote the first few chapters of his book multiple times before he figured out the general direction of his novel.
“I sort of had an idea. I wanted to write about boarding school ,and I sort of went from there,” said Ma. “It went in a very different direction from what I was hoping for at first… But I think I got everything about what I wanted to say out,” continued Ma.
The book took Ma about two and a half months to write during the summer of 2011. He wrote around five pages a day in between studying for SAT vocab and biking, according to Ma.
Ma said that he enjoys creative writing more than analytical writing. His preference for creative writing inspired him to write “The Silent Clock” independently.
The book was published through an independent publishing company. Ma’s family helped him self-edit his book.
“It was a long process; it took about a year to actually get it printed,” said Ma.
Ma names his older sister as one of his greatest mentors during his book-writing process. She also wrote a novel during her sophomore summer at Deerfield Academy. She did not continue to write after publishing the book, according to Ma.
“I sort of followed in her footsteps. She edited everything, gave me advice,” said Ma.
The book is for sale on Amazon and Barnes & Noble Booksellers.
