Soldier, son, lover, husband, breadwinner, churchgoer, Henry Maxwell has spent his whole life trying to live with honor. A native Pittsburgher and engineer, he's always believed in logic, sacrifice, and hard work. Now, seventy-five and retired, he feels the world has passed him by. It's 1998, the American century is ending, and nothing is simple anymore. His children are distant, their unhappiness a mystery. Only his wife Emily and dog Rufus stand...

A manager of a luxurious resort has to team up with his rival to foil a mob hit.

"Hendrik Groen may be old, but he is far from dead and isn't planning to be buried any time soon. Granted, his daily strolls are getting shorter because his legs are no longer willing and he has to visit his doctor more than he'd like. Technically speaking he is...elderly. But surely there is more to life at his age than weak tea and potted geraniums? Hendrik sets out to write an exposé: a year in the life of his care home in Amsterdam, revealing...

Two novellas provide insight into the human condition as a sixty-year-old art history academic embarks on an unexpected journey of discovery and a young farm boy is drawn to the water of Lake Michigan as an escape.

"At the bar of a grand hotel in a small Irish town one Saturday night in June, 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan gives five toasts to the five people who have meant the most to him. Through these people, he tells the story of his own lif with all its regrets and feuds, loves and triumphs"--

Albert Honig's most constant companions have always been his bees. A never-married octogenarian, he makes a modest living as a beekeeper, as his father and his father's father did before him. Deeply acquainted with the workings of the hives, Albert is less versed in the ways of people, especially his friend Claire, whose presence and absence in his life have never been reconciled.When Claire is killed in a seemingly senseless accident during a burglary...

"A curmudgeon and his eccentric new roommate join together to plan an epic escape in this charming, poignant tale. Joel lives in a nursing home, and he’s not one bit happy about it. He hates being told when to eat, when to sleep, when to take his pills. He’s fed up with life and begins to plan a way out when his new roommate, a retired soap opera actor named Frank, moves in and turns the nursing-home community upside down. Though the two men...

Identical twins Lewis and Benjamin Jones farm their Welsh Borders property, "The Vision," for half a century, their vigor, pain, angers, and involvements leading them to a sense of salvation.

Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn't bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new, spare, and efficient condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged.