Superannuated Man

Theodore Allenby Marsters is a sociology professor facing imposed retirement.  His dismissal will move him aside in favor of younger academics.  Recently, he has spent his research time delving into bias, a broad topic which touches everyone, and one which he, himself, now greatly feels.  Somewhat in protest, for his final course he gives a short lecture series on a wide array of biases, including those targeting elders. The novel presents Marsters's life to date in broad strokes, then proceeds to the current day, which is inhabited by scholars, friends, and classic existential works.  As the tale develops, the sister of one of his students pursues him.  They fall hard for each other and are together for a month, before she abandons him for her fiancé, leaving him no longer employed and alone – the setting for a surprising finish, offering the reader a perspective on aging, accomplishment, legacy, and fantasy: was his paramour real or a figment of a lonely old man's imagination?  One hundred and two thousand words.