Last Light

Last Light is a novel about renewal of men and women in their sixties and late fifties who are joined together in an Ulyssean quest for physical and spiritual rejuvenation. The setting is the Canadian Armed Forces, in a fictional response to charges of age discrimination directed at the Forces' policy on mandatory retirement. Techniques for reversing the bioligical clock are applied to the members of a new infantry unit: the Grey Berets. The keys to renewal, however, are to be found ultimately in strong leadership, the mysteries of mind-body connection and the strength of the human spirit. The novel draws mystical parallels between the events that take place in this story and the poem Ulysses, by Tennyson, as well as Dante's Inferno, on which the poem is based. It examines stereotypes on aging, leadership and courage by looking at them upside down. Elders go into combat as their children watch. The leadership of powerful, poll-driven politicians is challenged by a man guided only by his moral compass. Courage is expressed in restraint and self-sacrifice rather than the action-hero, guts-and-glory image so ingrained in the North American consciousness.