This book is about men who have done well enough in their work to have achieved a place in their society that most of us would consider satisfactory. Their occupations are solidly middle-class or possibly a bit better. They own homes in good suburbs or upper-income metropolitan neighborhoods.
The first question to which this book is addressed is the nature of these men's lives. To answer this question I describe the activities that absorb the men's energies, the relationships that sustain their functioning (although they can also, at times, be troubling), and the goals that give their lives direction and meaning. I examine the stresses the men experience, especially at work, and how they deal with them. And I try to make evident the way the men maintain their balance and their direction despite inescapable tensions, conflicts, and challenges.
The second question to which this book is addressed is that of the internal experience of men who do well at work. How does it feel to maintain so much investment in work, to be a devoted but sometimes absent husband and father, to be a trustworthy friend but not a confiding one? If the first question asks for more or less objective appraisal of men's lives, this second question asks about their subjective experience