"Of the wonders I yet have heard, / it seems to me most strange that men should fear; / seeing that death, a necessary end, / will come when it will come." William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene II. With transcendent understanding, Dr. Roy A. Teel Jr. takes us into the world of the dying—the world of faith and fate, of sadness and humor. His reality-based fiction invites you to join him in traveling the road of both physical death and emotional reckoning, with a few twists thrown in along the way. The Light of Darkness presents a picture of death unlike any seen in modern times by offering you both freedom from mortality...and the reality of it. "Death be not proud, though some have called thee / mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so, / for those who thou think'st thou dost overthrow, / die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me." John Donne, Holy Sonnets, Sonnet 10
The Light of Darkness brings you the other side of death—its mortal reality, its inevitability, and the differing ways that all of us will reach our ultimate end. But the journey doesn't end in the stories. The book gives death a voice in that it allows you to experience "Dialogues in Death" that none of us will know until we too are faced with our own demise. A fresh departure from Dr. Teel's scholarly works, The Light of Darkness illuminates the shadow lands of our finite lives with its triumphs, tragedies, love, humor, anger and loss. "Do not go gentle into that good night, / old age should burn and rave at close of day; / rage, rage against the dying of the light." Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"
When Roy Teel tells a story it is with passion and emotional candor. Eavesdrop on the conversation between young lovers embroiled in the bitter decision to end a pregnancy; follow the boy (now man) left to pick up the pieces of a shattered life to keep a promise made years earlier. His characters never take the high road; each narrator walks you through life's trials and tragedies with a knowing eye. The compelling prose brings the struggles of the characters to life: you feel what the characters feel. Whether it’s fear of approaching death, remorseful cries of anguish for words unspoken, or the reality of being alone when the struggle with mortality has ended. He shows you the devastation and joys of life and leave you with a way to move on. He even interjects an unusual sense of humor in showing a form of karma that saves one character from financial ruin. Each character has a unique voice. and the stories carry you from one to the next with their hints of hope despite drastic situations. In the end the reader is left with the knowledge that they have just had a conversation with death in and through the stories. Enter hesitant and curious and emerge encouraged and enlightened about your own mortality-and the mortality of those you love and even those you don't. The Light of Darkness takes you through the shadow lands of the author's imagination, leaving you with both an express appreciation for life and an understanding of its inevitable end.
