"Singers Out of Time" is a collection of family memories in short story form about the large Ritchie and Robinson families to which the author, Patrick Ritchie Robinson, belongs. Many of the stories are humorous while some are of a more serious nature reflecting incidents in the author's life that greatly impacted him. But most of all, the stories are about the many personalities that make up the Ritchie family of Viper, Kentucky (the famous "Singing Family of the Cumberlands") which includes traditional folk singer, Jean Ritchie, the "Mother of Folk," along with her mother, father and 13 brothers and sisters, among whom is the author's mother, Jewel Ritchie Robinson.

More than anything else, "Singers Out of Time" is a celebration and tribute to what it means to be part of a large, extended family as described in the opening story of the book:

"When coming home, the closer one gets to the family place in Viper, the more the affairs and troubles of the world seem to fall away, until finally, upon arriving, all that’s left is the simplicity of an individual spirit rejoining the embrace of a loving family of like-minded beings. It’s almost as if a separate pocket universe, partly physical and partly spiritual, where the laws of space and time no longer fully apply, surrounds the Ritchie family forming a safe retreat and welcoming haven to all its members."

Progressing through "Singers Out of Time" and experiencing the joys, laughter, and sorrows of the Ritchie/Robinson family, the reader starts to feel, more and more, part of that separate pocket universe that makes up the extended "Ritchie/Robinson" family, and experience what it's like to come home again.