Staying the Course: The Emotional and Social Lives of Men Who Do Well at Work

This refreshing, readable study by Weiss ( Marital Separation ) tells how 85 self-respecting and respected upper-middle-class American men aged 35 to 55 achieved responsible professional and community positions despite the inevitable frustrations, stresses and some less foreseeable cases of mental, alcoholic and marital problems. As important to their success as innate personal strengths, contends the author, were the men's acceptance of traditional standards of peer behavior and their willingness to divide life into three main and interdependent components--work, family and community, with work fundamental. Except for certain adjustments (to accommodate a wife's outside employment, for example), the author anticipates little basic change in the underlying structures of his subjects' lives, with work and the work community remaining the controlling factors. (July)