A Fifth Book in the Works

I've been working on a new novel in one of my favourite settings: a lighthouse. The novel spans forty-five years in the life of the lighthouse keeper Elijah Jones, beginning with the night of his retirement and then looking back to the start of his career.

Here's a sneak preview:

Chapter 1

My name is Elijah Jones, and I've been a lighthouse keeper for forty-five years. You might be surprised to learn that Canada still has fifty manned lighthouses. To my way of thinking, that's good. None of the fancy beacon technology in the automated sites amounts to a hill of beans when you're watching some drunken idiot wash his boat up on the rocks or you find a bloated corpse from a capsized vessel.

I've seen just about everything in the last forty-five years. At one time, I'd hoped one of my sons would take over from me as I'd done for my dad. But they had no interest in it at all. Rob, the oldest, works for the federal government in Ottawa. My younger son Billy is a teacher in Scarborough. The small town nearby the lighthouse couldn't hold their interest. Now they're both happier in the city, and I don't begrudge them that. All in all it's probably for the best.

I've trained my replacement, and he's ready to go. He's a bit arrogant but then so was I forty-five years ago. The isolation will round off his edges and make him more humble. It does that for all of us who've chosen this vocation.

The isolation is probably the worst of it. You get to imagining things: voices, misplaced objects, unexplained sounds.

This is my last night of work. But, truth be told, I'm badly frightened because I fear this may well be my last night on earth if They decide to return.

Chapter 2 : Looking Back

I'm twenty-two years old with a freshly-minted degree in sociology. My father insisted that I get a university education so I'd have some choices in life that he never had. But in the end I came back here—to this lighthouse. I'd known since I was a young boy that this was where I belonged.

Dad's retiring, and he's showing me the ropes this week. He runs through the logbooks he's kept all these years, telling me stories of the past. There're the smugglers who came ashore because they thought the lighthouse beacon was a drop-off signal; the fishing vessel whose crew lost its bearings in the fog; and even a drunken sailor who miraculously survived the sea. My father is the consummate storyteller, and I've listened to his tales since I was a small boy. There's always been a reverence in him: a respect for the sea and its vast energy.

I'm proud to be replacing him although I realize I'm probably a bit too cocky to truly understand the toll this job will extract from me.

Dad seems particularly serious tonight: his last night on the job. “Son, the loneliness of this job will prey on your soul. You won't recognize it at first, but it will creep up on you slowly until you're not sure whether it's night or day or if you're truly alone. The old-timers call it 'the willies'. They always tell the younger ones not to let the willies get them. And that's the best advice I can give you. Don't be afraid. You'll recognize them when they come.”

My dad died a week later in his bed with an expression of terror carved on his features. The coroner dismissed it as rigor mortis. . . .