Book excerpt: In this tenth book in Hugh Hood's highly acclaimed series, The New Age, two linked novellas explore the transforming powers of love. In the first novella Matthew Goderich discovers that his late Uncle Philip has had a secret and emotionally rewarding romantic life. In the second novella Matthew nurses his childhood friend, Adam, through a long, painful, and terminal AIDS-induced illness. Matthew, in the first novella, is the detached observer and dogged detective who comes to understand love; in the second, he finally becomes fully engaged with the emotion of loving as he rids himself of his homophobia and learns to appreciate and embrace Adam, his lifelong friend. Matthew's emotional awakening corresponds with society's growing awareness in the early 1980s of the nature and extent of the AIDS crisis. Dead Men's Watches continues Hugh Hood's vivid portrayal of Canadian social history and teaches us that the gift of love is all that matters in the end.