WHEN LILACS LAST is an historical biography of Bernard McLaughlin, a man born in Limestone, Maine, in 1898 who came to be known as "The Dean of Maine Gardeners." The four-acre lilac and perennial garden he created behind his South Paris, Maine, home achieved prominence not just in the Northeast, but nationally as well. Yet, when he died in 1995 at the age of 97, he had made no provision for the garden in his will, the result of which was a public "Save the Garden" action involving many diverse factions. At the center of this narrative is an examination of the garden acquisition conflict. At the same time, WHEN LILACS LAST is an examination of McLaughlin's life, of his relationship to his adopted son and how the consequence of that affected the garden's outcome. And WHEN LILACS LAST is a first-person narrative with the author being very much a part of the story. This book is essentially regional in its particulars, firmly rooted in Maine and depending upon Yankee, Down East values and perspectives. But it is ultimately universal in its examination of the human heart.