Life after Youth: The story of one man's journey through the transition at midlife

Life After Youth: Making Sense of One Man's Journey through the Transition at Midlife) Seán D. Sammon If you are a midlife man and can recall at least one late evening's conversation with a good male friend in the same boat, this is a book for you. Written in an inviting and conversational style, Sean Sammon's Life After Youth manages to touch upon all those topics that cause considerable anguish in the lives of most men after age 40.The book gets underway with a chapter entitled Midlife Tumor. At age 46, the author was diagnosed with a brain tumor of considerable size. His physician recommended neuro-surgery warning that, "Another year of life for this tumor will cost you your own." Reading Sammon's reaction to this judgment, I could not help but nod in agreement: At midlife, don't so many of us begin to realize that we probably have lived more years already than the number that lie ahead for us? That discovery seems to make all the difference in the world. As the text unfolds, Sammon helps us take a look at this question: What do you do when everything that once made sense in life, no longer does? In answering it, he takes us through a series of topics that will be of immediate interest to any midlife man: our growing awareness of personal mortality, making new sense of relationships and sexuality at midlife, the place of faith and spirituality in life's second half, the process of aging, and our struggle to make a difference in life, to leave some legacy that's lasting. The book is made up of a refreshing balance between autobiographical essays that address different aspects of Sammon's midlife journey-and that of each of us-and other chapters that contain sound and up-to-date theory about the way in which men change and grow emotionally and spiritually at midlife. You can read this book of a little over a hundred pages in an evening. I found, though, that I wanted to come back to sections of it, again and again, just as I also enjoy recalling the details of any late-evening conversation with a good friend. Sammon's book reassured me that a number of other men have shared my developmental adventures in life. This is a book for midlife men, and a book for anyone who wishes to understand them better. I am happy that I stumbled across Life After Youth; it's a gem.