Understanding Men's Passages: Discovering the New Map of Men's Lives

by Gail Sheehy

Overview

Her stunning bestsellers Passages and New Passages brilliantly mapped the changes we live through from youth to maturity. Now Gail Sheehy guides contemporary men through the turbulent challenges and surprising pleasures that begin at forty. As a man crosses that threshold, he is bound to ask midlife's most troubling question: Now what? Work anxieties, concerns over sexual potency, marital and family stress, issues of power, all take on new urgency as men contemplate the decades ahead. But as Gail Sheehy reveals in this major new book, midlife is precisely the period when men are most likely to reinvent themselves and become masters of their fate. In Understanding Men's Passages, Sheehy offers all men—and the women in their lives—an essential guide to self-discovery.

Hundreds of bold, imaginative men—celebrities as well as everyday heroes—share here their most intimate desires, deepest fears, and most fervent cravings for renewal. Decade by decade, Sheehy uncovers the real issues facing men today: finding new passion and purpose to invigorate the second half of their lives, dealing with "manopause," surviving job change, enjoying post-nesting zest, defeating depression, and learning what keeps a man young.

Informative and inspiring, grounded in fact and full of fascinating life stories, Understanding Men's Passages is a landmark that will take its place beside Gail Sheehy's epoch-making Passages and New Passages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780345406903
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/04/1999
Edition description:	FIRST BALLENTINE
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.19(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Millions of readers defined their lives through Gail Sheehy's landmark work, Passages, and through its bestselling sequel, New Passages. Among her twelve books is the huge international bestseller that broke the taboo around menopause, The Silent Passage. Ms. Sheehy is also a political journalist and contributing editor to Vanity Fair. The mother of two daughters, she divides her time between New York City and Berkeley, California, where she lives with her husband, editor and lecturer Clay Felker.

Hometown:

New York City and Berkeley, California

Date of Birth:

November 27, 1937

Education:

B.A., University of Vermont; M.A., Columbia School of Journalism

Table of Contents

	Author's Note	17
	Acknowledgments	31
Part I	What Do Men Want?
Chapter 1	It's a Guy Thing	35
	Are You Prepared for Another Life?	46
	But I'm Not Ready!	51
	The Need to Know and the Fear of Knowing	54
	The Eight-Hundred-Pound Gorilla	57
Chapter 2	The New Map of Adult Life	62
	The Wife's Nightmare	67
	What to Do with All This Leftover Life?	71
Part II	Flourishing Forties
Chapter 3	Why Do I Still Feel Like a Kid?	79
	The Vanity Crisis	83
	A Flagrant Freedom	90
	The Father-Son Midlife Power Struggle	97
	When You Comin' Home, Son?	99
	The Dead Father	101
	The Midlife Delinquent	105
Chapter 4	Manhood on Trial	112
	Yuppie Playing Catch-up	113
	Banker "Excessed" at Home	115
	The Sole Breadwinner's Insecurities	115
	The Idealist's Angst	116
	A Hard Time to Be a Man in His Forties	121
	Confronting the "False Self"	124
	Are You What You Smoke?	127
	"The Big Impossible"	130
	The Reluctant Father	136
	First Fatality Jitters	140
	Moving Up the Mortality Markers	146
	Honor Among Men	149
	Manly Sports: More Than Just a Game	152
	Current Manhood Models	157
Chapter 5	Married and Mortal	175
	The Aha! Moment	175
	The Heart of the Matter	180
	The Stonewaller's Defense	189
	The Trouble with Wives	195
Part III	Fearless Fifties
Chapter 6	Passage to Your Second Adulthood	203
	The Samson Complex	206
	Mature Masculinity	212
	Former Pro Football Star	217
	Geezer in Graduate School	218
	Globe-trotting Journalist Turns Gardener	219
	The Fearless Professor	223
	Beyond Power	228
	Barry Diller's Search for Self	235
	Prospero's Passage	244
	Welcome to the Age of Influence	248
Chapter 7	Redirect Your Life Before the Hammer Falls	254
	The Dark Night of Joe O'Dell	257
	Destructive Defenses	262
	The Comeback of Joe O'Dell	265
	They'll Never Fire Me	268
	The Rebirth	273
	The Window of Opportunity	278
	Midlife Money Realities	280
	What Could Spook John Wayne?	283
	Give Up "I'm the Big Shot"	285
	Building a Team	289
	Opening the Spiritual Dimension	292
	Find Your Passion and Pursue It	298
Chapter 8	Love and War with Wives, Fathers, Children	303
	From Competing to Connecting	305
	Gender Crossover: Comfort or Crisis?	309
	Coaching the Coach	313
	Withholding Sex	320
	The Safety Net Wife	324
	Making the Crossover Work	331
	Brain-Sex Changes	333
	Mellowing Out	336
	Empty Heart	337
	Mr. Mom	340
	Father Hunger	343
	Letting Go of a Growing Son	344
	How Many Men Friends Can You Count?	349
	The Nest Is Empty -- Are You Ready for Love in the Morning?	355
Part IV	Who's Afraid of Male Menopause?
Chapter 9	The Male Sexual Life Cycle	361
	Magical Expectations	362
	The Male Sexual Life Cycle	369
	The Unspeakable Passage	376
	Men Behaving Intelligently	383
	Mind over Manliness	389
Chapter 10	Secrets of Perpetual Virility	391
	Would You Rather Have Steak and a Smoke Than Be a Sexual Athlete?	392
	Magic Bullets	397
	When Sunday-Afternoon Football Is Better Than Sex	401
	Free Testosterone!	404
	DHEA: A Man's Master Hormone	408
	Chemical Machismo	409
	Couples Work	414
	The Testimonial Woman	422
	Teaming Up to Find the Right Treatment	424
Part V	Influential Sixties
Chapter 11	Passage to the Age of Integrity	429
	Secrets of Well-being in the Sixties	431
	Imagining the Paul McCartney Retirement Home	436
	Don't Retire! Redirect!	438
	Looking for Your Postcareer Career	442
	His and Her Retirement Fantasies	446
Chapter 12	Progress Versus Despair	452
	The Black Tempest	455
	Don't Back Up, Severe Tire Damage!	460
	Help Is Not Hard to Get	464
	I Am Not Having a Heart Attack!	469
	Absorbing the Blows of Fate	474
Part VI	What Keeps a Man Young?
Chapter 13	Unconventional Wisdom	481
	Do Men Have to Die Earlier Than Women?	485
	Unretired Champions	490
	Growing and Regenerating Brain	497
	Spiritual Hunger	501
	Love in the Twilight of Life	503
	A Lusty Winter	505
	Appendices
	Appendix A	511
Chapter 6	Passage to Your Second Adulthood
	Coping with Job Loss	511
	Strategies for Surviving Job Loss in Middle Life	513
	Resources: Career Counselors	516
	Appendix B	518
Chapter 8	Love and War with Wives, Fathers, Children
	Resources: Couples Therapy	518
	Appendix C	520
Chapter 10	Secrets of Perpetual Virility
	Shopping for a Doctor/Male Health Clinic	520
	Resources: Physicians and Therapists for Sexual Health Issues	521
	Appendix D	525
Chapter 11	Passage to the Age of Integrity
	Preretirement Couples Exercises	525
	Appendix E	527
Chapter 12	Progress Versus Despair
	Warning Signs of Depression	527
	Bibliography	529

Editorial Reviews

"Sheehy's advice, bolstered with demographic research, group interviews, medical commentary and personal testimony, is tough and wise."
—The New York Times Book Review

"SHEEHY HAS DONE IT AGAIN: engaged in a good deal of research, interviewed many of the right people, and then produced a beautifully readable, very useful guide to important aspects of adult human development. . . . The cumulative mass of her information, observations, and anecdotes is immensely impressive."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Her book will encourage and comfort many men, who—reluctant to confide in their friends or even in their wives—had imagined they were the only ones disheartened and confused by the thorny, arduous path from one stage of life to another."
—People

From the Publisher

I hope men will take the daring step of reading the book for themselves, because Sheehy's advice, bolstered with demographic research, group interviews, medical commentary and personal testimony, is tough and wise. -- New York Times Book Review

Elaine Showalter

The years after 40 offer men a "second adulthood," declares Sheehy, a chance to reinvent themselves. But first they must shift from competing to connecting, from incessant striving for external rewards to a quest for inner fulfillment through meaningful pursuits, after determining what they really want of the second half of their lives. In a constructive, enlightening guide to self-discovery for men and their partners, the author of "Passages" and "New Passages" uses 100 male interviewees, case histories and medical and psychological research to probe men's feelings about death, spiritual hollowness, empty nest syndrome, separation anxieties, their envy of their empowered working wives, pre-retirement jitters and waning sexual potency. There are enough fresh angles in this searching exploration of male malaise to help men tailor their goals and dreams to real-life circumstances.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gail Sheehy has managed to penetrate the hidden vault of men's fears and secrets -- the real concerns that men do not share with each other. Men -- and women -- need to read this book to understand who we men really are and who we are becoming. The storytelling alone is worth the price of admission. -- Walter Anderson, Parade Magazine

Walter Anderson

Despite some facile passages, the bestselling journalist Sheehy ("Passages", 1976; "New Passages", 1995; etc.) has done it again: engaged in a good deal of research, interviewed many of the right people, and then produced a beautifully readable, very useful guide to important aspects of adult human development. Her focus is both descriptive, charting the changing nature of American men's lives from the "second adulthood" that often begins between ages 40 and 50, through the attempt to live a vigorous, still-evolving old age, and prescriptive, helping men to rethink their lives in order to make a "preemptive strike against sameness and sourness." Sheehy's overly and redundantly upbeat tone can indeed be grating at times, and she does venture her share of insipid, undocumented generalizations: "Women are happier in midlife than they have been in any previous generation" (tell that to the economically downwardly mobile divorced women studied by Judith Wallerstein). But the author more than compensates for such passages by picking just the right variety of professionals and laypeople with whom to speak, by asking probing questions, listening well, and (usually) writing even better. The cumulative mass of her information, observations, and anecdotes is immensely impressive, addressing a wide variety of issues related to middle-aged men's dilemmas—from being laid off abruptly to beginning a new career, from impotence to sexuality among the aged, from depression (and new findings about its close correlation with heart attacks) to struggling for emotional regeneration. Much of this will help thousands of men and women alike. Credit also should go to both author and publisher fordoing a first-rate job on a commonly overlooked aspect of popular books: providing crisp, imaginative headings and an appealing layout. This is a rare work of engaging and substantive pop-psych that is perfectly balanced between psychology and the þpopular.

Kirkus Reviews