Rules for Old Men Waiting: A Novel

by Peter R. Pouncey

A brief, lyrical novel with a powerful emotional charge, Rules for Old Men Waiting is about three wars of the twentieth century and an ever-deepening marriage. In a house on the Cape “older than the Republic,” Robert MacIver, a historian who long ago played rugby for Scotland, creates a list of rules by which to live out his last days. The most important rule, to “tell a story to its end,” spurs the old Scot on to invent a strange and gripping tale of men in the trenches of the First World War. Drawn from a depth of knowledge and imagination, MacIver conjures the implacable, clear-sighted artist Private Callum; the private’s nemesis Sergeant Braddis, with his pincerlike nails; Lieutenant Simon Dodds, who takes on Braddis; and Private Charlie Alston, who is ensnared in this story of inhumanity and betrayal but brings it to a close.This invented tale of the Great War prompts MacIver’s own memories of his role in World War II and of Vietnam, where his son, David served. Both the stories and the memories alike are lit by the vivid presence of Margaret, his wife. As Hearts and Minds director Peter Davis writes, “Pouncey has wrought an almost inconceivable amount of beauty from pain, loss, and war, and I think he has been able to do this because every page is imbued with the love story at the heart of his astonishing novel.”

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Book Club, War, Novels, Audiobook, Contemporary

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Peter R. Pouncey (born 1937) is an author, classicist, and university administrator. The son of a British father and a French-British mother, he was born in Tsingtao (now Qingdao), China. At the end of World War II, after several dislocations and separations, his family reassembled in England, and Pouncey was educated there in boarding schools and at Oxford. For a time, he studied for the Jesuit priesthood but ultimately experienced a loss of faith.

Shortly after obtaining a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1969, he was appointed assistant professor of Greek and Latin in the Classics Department. In 1972 he took up the post of Dean at Columbia College. As Dean, he was a forceful proponent of admitting women to the college, going so far as to hold a faculty vote on the matter without the knowledge of the university's president, William McGill. Concerns about the future of Barnard College led to McGill's rejection of the proposal. In 1976, Pouncey resigned as Dean. As a member of the Classics Department, he produced a number of notable works of scholarship, including the book The necessities of war: a study of Thucydides' pessimism which won the university's Lionel Trilling Award.

In 1984, he became President of Amherst College. Upon his retirement in 1994, he returned to Columbia. His novel Rules for Old Men Waiting won the McKitterick Prize and was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2006. Pouncey currently divides his time between New York City and northern Connecticut.

Reviews

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Peter Pouncey was 68 when this book was published in 2005. This is his first novel. And it’s pretty wonderful.

I picked this up years ago at a $1 library sale and forgot all about it, but it was recently excavated during reorganization efforts, and I’m glad I found it.

A summary of the plot makes it sound too grim: an irascible old man, sick and alone in the dead of a Massachusetts winter, suspects he’s dying. But that would be reductive. In Chapter 1, entitled “Rules to Stop the Rot,” our narrator, MacIver, decides to deal squarely with the fact of his rapidly waning health. Failing fast, he knows he must “retrench,” which turns out to be a relevant metaphor. He makes a conscious decision to take charge of his decline, abjuring self-pity, and formulates “a plan to take back his life, until he could give it away on an acceptable basis.”

A widowed retired historian, MacIver lives in a deteriorating house in a Cape Cod neighborhood once travelled by Thoreau. It’s been a while since I’ve read Thoreau, but Wikipedia reminds me that one of Thoreau’s deep interests was the “idea of survival in the face of hostile elements,” so this reference In Rules for Old Men Waiting was entirely appropriate.

MacIver, in accordance with his plan, assigns himself the project of writing a story. To deal with his rage at his circumstances (not a new emotion for him, as we will learn), and to escape the fragmentary mental state he is in, he will “Tell a story to its end” which will bring “some order and resolve to his abject life.”

MacIver’s memories of his life and his wife and son (now both deceased) and the narrative of his story project make up the content of Pouncey’s short novel. Drawing on his lifelong interest in that era, MacIver plans and writes the story of several soldiers and their superiors in the trenches of WWI, their relationships, and a plot whose themes revolve around personal integrity and being true to oneself in the face of senseless carnage, sociopathy, and a hostile world apparently devoid of meaning. [I was reading this 100+ years after WWI . . . as bombs fell on Kyiv.]

In a scant 240 pages, Rules for Old Men Waiting manages to incorporate really lovely writing about life, love, loss, memory, war and violence, art (visual, musical, and storytelling), and personal integrity. It’s sad, but not depressing; moving, but in a good way; and ultimately, somehow life-affirming. Did I mention this was a first novel by a 68-year-old author?

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story within a story that shows how love can define a life, how decency can happen even between men who are not equals, how anger and ego can be tempered by friendship, how loyalty can overcome striving, how the burden and gift of mortality can bring a man to his knees or lift his thoughts beyond himself . . . All that pebbled with scenes that come alive through a nostalgic nod at art, music, humor, sex, travel, domestic life , academic life, and sport makes this a big little book !

[Kaarin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apparently this is the one and only work of fiction that Peter Pouncey has ever written, and what an absolute gem it is. A must read for anyone who admires beautifully crafted, intelligent and souful writing. This may even make my top 10 list, but then again, there are so many great books out there in the world....!

[Jesse Hanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Brilliant Portrayal of a Man in Reflection~Of a Man with a Purpose.

I found this book in the little corner library (I could scarcely use the term more loosely) of an assisted living facility. I liked the cover. I read it and I now I have to return it but I don't want to--that means I'll have buy my own copy. About the only part of me that didn't like it was my ego. I'm also a writer and I am jealous of the author's accomplishment... There, I said it.

Rules for Old Men Waiting is Peter Pouncey's debut novel. However he took a long time writing it; says he had no sense of urgency in the process. I'm not going to give anything away, but there is a character in his book who is writing with much more urgency. Well, it's easy to imagine what old men may be waiting for, anyway. But, one can hardly read this story without sensing the autobiographical quality of it. So, one way or the other, writer of the book, writer within the book, it's all to the reader's benefit.

So whether you have urgency in your life or you are one who just sits back, contented with a good book, this is a beautifully written story that will likely reach you and move you in it's portrayal of a very masculine, and very sensitive, human experience.

[Tom LA · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderfully poetic book, with a huge soul. The narrative structure is not ideal, with the close third person telling us about a main character who himself is writing a book about his memories - but somehow it works. What is striking about this book is:
- the main character, MacIver: rough, brave, strong, Scottish masculine ex-rugby player who was an over-achiever, got a PhD in history, and at the same time has a keen eye for art and a wonderful ear for music. How refreshingly different from literary stereotypes.
- the descriptions of music pieces and works of art. Clearly, the author has a deep passion for art and he has an uncanny ability to put into words the beauty of a musical composition or that of a painting.
- the poetic mood of most passages especially in the vignettes from the past. A lot of this novel reads as "an old guy reminiscing", which potentially could be dreadfully boring, but the quality of the language and the cleverness of the main character's observations make it exciting and worthwhile.

On the downside, you could argue that there is not much of a narrative arc, or a driving tension throughout, because most sections are slices of life from the past, almost separate short stories, but again, the content is never boring (except maybe brief parts of the war section, a little overdrawn in my opinion).

As a reader, you want to listen to McIver, because you are pulled in by his charisma and by his extraordinary strength. And by his extraordinary life.

p.s. I listened to the audiobook, and it was a true pleasure to hear the Scottish accent in the dialogues. The reader did a great job.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written novel about aging, war, and making peace with yourself.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this "Rules for Old Men" on my Kindle for one of my book club selections and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Although these was sadness reading this story, is was very well done.

An old man, Robert MacIver, having lost his wife falls into a deep depression when thinking about his future life. He lives in a run down house in the countryside. The house needs much care taking. The front porch needs repairing and numerous daily tasks have to be done for him to successfully live in the house and just survive. He falls into a pattern of poor eating, lack of cleanliness and never shopping or cooking. He needs to lay in fire wood for the winter, shop for food, interact with others, make repairs on the house and yet he finds himself unable to move forward without his wife by his side

MacIver is a retired professor and a specialist in the First World War. As the story progresses, part of his regaining himself is re-telling his history, and that of others, focusing upon the conflict and horror of war. As he decides to move forward with his life, he establishes 10 rules for himself to live by. The journey he takes the reader on is one back and forth is time and place and is full of vivid memories. This story is wonderfully done and is a sad, fateful and yet a gentle story. This is a book I would recommend.

[Bill Keefe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intrigued by the title I ventured in. The first chapter, the setting of the rules, kept me reading. Change, sadness and a self-prescribed regime for productive survival...productive winding down.

Given the title and the intro, I had expected, and hoped, that the prescription itself would play a large part in the story, perhaps following through a complex ending of life. As it turns out, the prescription serves as little more than a structure to keep the main character alive so that two stories can unfold, his and that of the quick novel chooses to write in his remaining days. His ending is not complex. He will not be "waiting" a long time, and other than his changing diet and declining health, there is little offered to better understand the wider value of the rules themselves.

So you have two stories, one a fairly simple, but interesting morality tale that takes place in the trenches of World War I, the main characters reflections on a life well led.

The two stories are interwoven, so that you drop in on one and the other; lessons overlap, events in one spur thoughts for the other. In the end you have a touching story of a man, his loves, his losses and maybe most of all his gratitude.

A good read.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this writer. I like the way he writes about an old guy who at first seems to be waiting to die. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that he ends up living his life.

I would have guessed that I would want to read a book about an old guy examining his life, a book about a young man who thinks about the world, a book about a marriage relationship, a book about facing oneself, a book about discovering the effect one has had on others. I would not think that I would want to read a book about particular evils of WWI and WWII or even a book about rugby. Turns out I wanted to read it all.

I would have given this book 5 stars if it were longer. I want more from this writer.

Thanks to my sister Ruth for introducing me to him.

[Koeeoaddi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I keep thinking about this book, years after I read it. I think that merits another star, so 4 instead of 3.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely and surprisingly-not-depressing

[Zachary Fier · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very interesting for me to read. MacIver pretty early in the book loses his wife. He deals with the loss of his wife in a not great way. He gets very sad and doesn't really know what to do with himself. To help himself go forward in life, he makes rules that he follows to keep himself going. MacIver throughout the book tells stories of his own life when he was in the war. The rest of the book tells the story of how he gets his life back on track and I liked reading this book for the most part.

[Monique · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a stunted being a modern man is.

[James Stamoulis · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my option I thought Rules for Old Men Waiting was a good read and enjoy it majority. It was a brief read with a powerful emotional change throughout keeping the reader intrigued and urging to keep reading. With the emotional ride the book consists of describing three wars in the twentieth century. If war story books are in your interest I would suggest this book for you. Lasty, the book has an ever deepening marriage. Overall I would suggest this book to other but I wish It started off more excited as it took a few chapters to get to the good stuff.

[Alesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many story lines all wrapped up into this little gem of a book (208 pages).

First, we have an old Scot named MacIver mourning the loss of his wife, living alone near a lovely pond. He is sickly himself, and not taking care of himself either. So he comes up with a set of rules to help him cope with his inevitable decline. These are simple ones at first, like eating a healthy meal every day. They evolve as he grows more feeble as winter wears on.

The second is a short novella that he writes about men in the trenches of WWI. MacIver is a historian, and he puts his research into a story about three Brits on the edge of No Man's Land. They, too, are facing imminent death, each in his own way.

Then we have the story of the main character's marriage, and how it changed when the couple's son died. Again, another death.

This is not exactly a happy book. But it is a very wise and human one. We see a noble, obstinate and refined old fellow dealing with loneliness and illness in the bravest way he knows how. We see him reviewing his life's choices and chewing on a certain amount regret. I found him to be a really admirable character, in his stubborn refusal to be a wuss. He stays true to who he is, despite the agony of disease.

I enjoyed learning that the author was the former dean of Columbia University, and a classicist trained at Oxford. The book is filled with learned allusions and metaphors, resulting in a novel that is both erudite and immensely satisfying.

[Michael Joe Armijo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe this was recommended to me from LIKEWISE, an app, or maybe via AMAZON or GOODREADS. The title intrigued me so I bought it about a year ago and decided to start it earlier this month. It was kind of depressing because the main character was a recent widower (his wife died). He roams around his comfortable home and is writing about WWII stories (for which he had been a soldier). Then, I come to learn that he and his wife had a son who had lost a leg during the Vietnam War. Once home on an honorable discharge, the son has an operation so that he could be fitted for a prosthetic leg—but he ended up dying from a blood clot after the operation.

I think I should be reading a book called RULES FOR YOUNG MEN CONTINUING! However, the author of this book did touch me at moments. I even sent a note to his daughter, Maggie, on Instagram, informing her about it. I hope she’ll be touched.

The book was like three stories in one:

1. An elder man coping with the misery of his deceased wife

2. A WWII story that includes a murder (or two) among American soldiers/officers

3. A man and woman, dealing with the loss of their only son

The main character, Robert MacIver, was a historian (just like the author) who long ago played rugby for Scotland (just like the author) and created a list of rules by which to live out his last days. The most important rule, to “TELL A STORY TO ITS END”. It is semi-autobiographical. I am sure of it.

I think the WWII story has the most potential if the characters were built-up more and focus had been just that one story—but then it wouldn’t really be RULES FOR OLD MEN WAITING, I suppose.

I got curious about the author, Peter Pouncey, and I came to learn that he had died himself on May 30, 2023 (just a few weeks ago) at the age of 85 in Canaan, CT. He had been the president of Amherst College for ten years (1984-1994).

In any case, here are the lines that caught my attention:

“Tell a story to its end.”

Why labor to put names on things, when there was no one there to say them to?

He should do things every day to keep himself alert and as happy as possible. If you are going to go under, it shouldn’t be from the weight of self-pity alone. He must make rules to hold himself together.

The well-ordered life for a feeble old man:

Keep personally clean

Make bed every morning, and clean house twice a week

Eat regularly

Play music and read

Television only in the evening, except for weekend and seasonal showdown sports

Work every morning. Nap in afternoon, if needed.

When you go to bed, you’ll have to take whatever dreams are sent, and maybe some will be of use.

“Work to consist of telling a story to the end, not just shards, but the whole pot.”

The truth was, he was a little pleased with himself: you felt better if you did something—anything.

Play MAHLER’s Sixth Symphony to keep the mellow mood flowing.

Of course, everyone’s afraid of what they can’t see.

“The thing about you is that you have a lot of violence in your nature, and only a piece of you disapproves of the fact: you had better find a gentle girl and marry her, so you can learn the rest.”

We must not assume that oral history ever gives us the whole history.

Neither the whisky nor the fire could quell his shivers. But he sat on after the music, thinking as he liked to do, about his boyhood.

She was asked what it was like going to bed with him, she had answered, “It’s sort of like going to bed with a polar bear. You know that when he settles down, he’s going to keep you nice and snug, but you don’t know what sort of friskiness he’s going to get up to first.”

Aristotle says that every animal except woman and the rooster are sad after sex.

“Do you think also that sometimes, the level of expectations directed towards you compels you to rise higher, to be more than yourself?”

“You know, the cruel thing about depression is it makes you...remove all flashes of energy or concentration, to ensure that you can never complete anything, so that you have no smidgeon of self-esteem left.”

“I’ll do what one always does in Paris, I’ll pick up shiny chestnuts in the Place des Vosges and watch children float ancient wooden toy boats with faded sails in the ponds of the Tuileries gardens and sit in cafes and sip what the mood of the moment orders and drink in everything else, and go to concerts and in churches in the evening, and read. And occasionally I’ll think of you.”

The beautiful thing about war was that officers often have their hand forced to do things that would never occur to them in peace.

It is hard to catch the mood of a meeting when you come in very late and have no idea of the developments before.

“I like to think I’m a very little bit like Odysseus, the Greek, whose name means something about sorrow. I was crazy about him when I read him in school. And when he was a boy, he went to visit his granddad; They were doing nothing but Art, and everything was beautiful. But unfortunately, there was this huge rampaging wild boar messing things up and eating people; and Odysseus went out and hunted him. The boar just erupted out of the thicket, but Odysseus was ready, and got his spear into him, but the weight of the boar was on him, and he got his tusk into the boy’s leg before he died, and Odysseus carried the scar for the rest of his life.”

He did not intend to write another line, but he could still take an interest in the characters he had created; there was some pleasure in projecting their lives further out, or going forwards and backwards over them, as memory does with our own.

You want a happy ending, you want it all to add up to one big thing, the good and the bad, the plus and the minuses, the nature and the violence to nature. Well, good luck, I suppose, but I can’t do it.

We do learn from each other, especially those we admire or love.

“You’ve been so wrong so many times, but you can’t have been wrong every time.”

At key times; you start to write a first novel with doubt, but I became conscious of a resonant chorus in the air around me, strong with the insistence that the time comes when you stop talking and finish what you have begun. A book goes nowhere unless it is adopted or espoused, and then advanced.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written and haunting novel. A story within in a story. Robert MacIver is an elderly professor and writer. He is living remotely after his wife, Margaret, has died. Age is catching up with him physically and mentally. He has a hard time focusing, remembering, and eating properly. As the story unfolds we learn about the sorrow he and Margaret carried when their only child, David, is killed. David was a medic in Vietnam and he returns home only to die from a leg wound received in the line of duty. Robert's Scottish father, Alastair, was a WWI. Robert served in WWII. David served in Vietnam.
Robert writes a story about the war theater of WWI. Sergeant Reggie Braddis is a highly skilled killer and a bully. He has it out for Private Tim Callum, who is an artist, and draws pictures in his off duty time. Lt. Simon Dodds is a kind, strong leader. He recognizes the private side and talent of Tim and reprimands Braddis for picking on Tim. Braddis seeks his revenge against Dodds. Callum gets even with Braddis. Private Charles Alston is witness to the atrocities. This story within the story was my favorite part of the book. I enjoyed how the characters were introduced and the story unfolded.

[Kklingon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the start of this one; it reminded me of Stegner, one of my great favorites. Then the author introduced a story within the story, and I wasn't too sure I wanted to break away from the original story. I stuck with it, though, and am glad I did. Lovely, (mostly) quiet book about coming to terms with one's life at its end.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story within a story. A dying man writes the story that has been on his mind, and the story tells so much in so few words. A keeper.

[Harry Allagree · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peter Pouncey writes elegantly & poetically as he unfolds the story of the last days & the ruminations of 80 year old Dr. Robert MacIver. MacIver reflects an honest attitude about the human endeavor, seen through the filter of his own life, even though he has never completely lost his knack for "bullyingness" in relationships. But for all his faults, he speaks of the genuine love which existed between his late wife, Margaret, their willingness to confront life together, and their attempt to look beyond the evident for the reality of people & things. They experienced the death of a beloved son, something many of us readers of this book share.

The passage in the book which most caught my eye was the reply by one of MacIver's former students to a question during an interview: "What was the most important lesson you learned from him?" She says: "Mr. MacIver always insisted that, whatever I was learning about historical methods in the course of my degree, I should never surrender the conviction...that a historian must involve himself passionately in the lives of the people he is studying. He has to understand the minute variances that are the real prime movers of historical change: the choices an individual can make, from the identical background as everyone around him, to crave something for himself and his family that is entirely different from the 'popular' choice. He was a notoriously passionate man himself and I think quite a few of his colleagues disapproved of him or were afraid of him."

[Jostalady · Rating 4 out of 5]

I kept putting this aside as my parents were dying, reading a little bit at a time.

The author took 25 years to write it, so I felt no urgency to devour it quickly. I experienced no guilt for prolonging the character's lives just a bit longer. The nature of the story also lends itself to a slow taking in. It is a short book, but to read it fast would be to lose something.

I took just the amount of time I needed, as first my mother passed and then my dad. My dad was a former teacher who had become an old man waiting, grieving his wife and helplessly witnessing his own decline while recounting memories, writing a book and sharing his war expertise. This cross over into my reality, made reading this book especially meaningful.

The overall premise and story arc are solid. There are very clear characters you are drawn to while others cause you to recoil. The parallel stories, a historical fiction within a realistic fiction, come together with emotional resonance. There isn't a lot of character depth filled in, just a sketch told in glimpses, but the suggestion to the reader that there is a great deal of depth within these outlines allows you to fill in those depths whoever you like. It is very hard not to get wrapped up in his grief for his wife and son, then to helplessly witness his own decline and loss of dignity in the first person.

I recommend it, if it resonates with you. If it doesn't line up with your life yet, it might not be the right timing for you to get much out of it.

[LINDSAY · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful treatment of grief, ageing, war and character. Involving four stories in one, it is told sometimes through memory, at other times through imagination and also in the present time. I first read the book about 20 years ago and was not in the frame of mind to fully appreciate it. Now, having read it again in a less busy and more reflective phase of life, I found it to be both senstive and comforting in its reality. Basing the narrator-cum-author on a highland Scot man transplanted to the New World will speak to a wide public that is familiar with the character ascribed to Scots across what was the British Empire. It brings with it the personal resolve and energy that is made clear through the novel, including the 'Rules' of the title. I saw the 'Rules' as an expression of the Old Man's independence that was his method of dealing with grief's burdens of depression and indolence. His method worked, and produced its own novella which is dotted through the composite novel. It provided him with a means of 'Waiting' for his own demise. The author knows academia with its mix of cosiness, competition and concealed aggression, and his writing indicates that he personally knows love and loss. Succinctly developing the character's past including his rugby field prowess provides for a very moving and compact final clause with which the book ends. A beautifully crafted work that I would recommend to any reader who combines some of the experiences that the book covers, especially to late-life academics. Prof Emeritus Lindsay Falvey

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A blind choice, this book. I don't typically lean toward war-related fiction, but I am so glad I picked up this short novel.

The author has a gift for description, for pace, for slow revelation of story. I loved the personal, vulnerable glimpse inside a complex and sensitive male character reflecting on his life through the struggle with loss and age, living a very real moment. I adored the characters, their development, the tales of their lives, their joys, their struggles, their hidden, personal moments. The narration is rich and authentic. The woven stories of MacIver's reminiscences, his deterioration, and his fiction-writingp pursuits are elegant and profound. Classical music appeared throughout the story, and indeed the whole work had the deliberate, artful structure of a classical piece.

I loved this book.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read two books about aging men the last few weeks; this one and "A Man Called Ove". Not sure if it was coincidence or looking for some "guides" ;) I can relate to taciturn craftsman Ove more than the academic rugby player MacIver. But I can relate to both of them methodically planning their path to what they see as tidy ends; no throwing fate to the wind. In contrast to MacIver who finds solace in words and ideas, Ove focuses on solid objects for their substance. What is common to them is their physical strength; one look and you see a rock (perhaps until they lose their spouses). Each has a constrained anger. Yet gentle-men in the end who honor what their wives taught them. In short, old school men; both struggling for a manly exit.

[Sunny Meadow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of literature, not a simple story. Lots of dense but apt lines like this:

“Few inner gratitudes run deeper than the one that greets release from violent pain.”

And this:

“You see, the cruel thing about depression is not that it makes you see the world darkly; God knows at my jauntiest, I’ve always looked on the world darkly. How else should one look at the bloody thing? The real debasing role of depression is to remove all flashes of energy or concentration, to ensure that you can never complete anything. Depression as depth fatigue. It takes a particular zest in grinding you to immobility, so that you have no smidgeon of self-esteem left. It’s my kind of guy - no half-measures, takes no prisoners.”

It’s about getting old and World War I. I enjoyed it.

[Miles Gose Tolosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first book I've read for pleasure in a long time, and my first of 2025. I stumbled across it at a thrift store, and based off the title alone, I assumed it would carry some knowledge that may be useful to a 20-year old college student such as myself...

and boy, did it!

I found myself particularly fond of the narrative structure (although, I can admit at first I was a bit confused). As someone who finds themselves often grapples with the same feeling of nostalgia MacIver does, I thought novel did a wonderful job illustrating a man reflecting on his life in his final days. I hope to be half as insightful when my time eventually nears MacIver's.

Overall, a wonderful book!

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

At 67, former classics professor and retired President of Amherst College, Peter Pouncey made his debut as a novelist. Here's to raising a toast to late bloomers and, with a nod to old men, I would recommend it be a glass of single malt Scotch.

With his wife of 40 years now gone, health failing, and winter coming on, Richard MacIvor sets out the rules for his last chapter. It is Rule #7 - Work every morning - that gives the reader the story within a story. I am not sure which story moved me more, MacIvor’s reflection on a long life well lived, or the story that unfolds as he sits down each morning to write about WWI soldiers in the trenches of France.

Pouncey’s writing is spare, straightforward, and beautiful; this compact novel covers an amazing amount of emotional terrain. Rules for Old Men Waiting is a terrific read.

[Alec Hastings · Rating 5 out of 5]

We all suffer loss by the time we reach our sixties and seventies. This story is about a man who loses his wife at that age and is sick himself. Maybe it's only a novel for the old, but then again, maybe it's a novel for any reader motivated to understand the full spectrum of experience, female and male, life and death, joy and pain. I wondered if this would be a grim, bleak story. It has some moments of that, but more of it was about transcending loss than taking the swan dive into depression. Nice work, Mr. Pouncey.

[Tammy Schilling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started off interesting, but soon took a hard turn into boring. Story runs on three different tracks of the same character. 1. His status as an elderly widower, which is where you start and is interesting. 2. His youth in war. 3. A fiction book he is writing becomes it's own timeline.

By the time #2 and #3 are established #1 is mostly dropped. The book becomes simultaneously hard to follow over story and time lines, but also boring and not worth the effort. I dropped it about 30% of the way in.

[Michele Delimont · Rating 5 out of 5]

Totally not what I was expecting but I ended up with a tear or two. A celebrated professor of the history of WWI shares his life, his loves and combines that with his rules to complete as he believes he is dying. One of those rules is completing a story of fictional soldiers based on his own memories and how they affect each others' lives. It's interesting how the book has several angles but it is very well written and I was pleasantly surprised.