Women: One Man's Journey

Women: One Man's Journey is a memoir in which the author's relationship with women throughout his life has been the subject of fulfillment, mystery, and sometimes grief. In it, he ponders to what degree such experiences result from inherent differences between the sexes; or something he brought to the table; or something individual to each of the women in his life; or the result of societal changes in both women and men. And while some might argue these questions occupy only older men, a divorce rate still in the high forty percentile, MeToo revelations which are rife, and economic equities continue to dominate airwaves and public and private discourse.

Women: One Man's Journey, is the long view of a man's cumulative experience of the various women with whom he shared his life and were instrumental in making him the man he became---not exclusively, since his life and character have been constituted from many internal and environmental influences brought out in the autobiography. Yet, in this, the last quintile of the author's life, his relationship with women appears to be the single, most dominant external factor. And who would dispute the importance of mothers, wives, girlfriends, sexual drives, social expectations, or the dynamic terms of emotional, economic and social contracts on the lives of men and on which women also depend? The author professes no special authoritativeness as a lawyer, psychologist, or marriage counsellor. His goal is to provide insight into his experience for the reader to unpack. In the end, he hopes this memoir will contribute to more comity between men and women.

Lanny is a writer of short and long fiction and non-fiction, some of which has been contest prize winners. He is also a published novelist and a city guy, having lived in town in each city in which he has resided. He has been a Philadelphian for thirty years and lives alone and writes in big, ol' Arts & Crafts house near the University of Pennsylvania. Lanny's daughter, Amanda, still charms him out of his socks, while her husband, Mayer, makes him think so much only six-hundred milligrams of ibuprofin helps. His baby granddaughter, Monica, completes a family picture worthy of Thomas Eakins, and his long-time companion, artist Jackie Perskie, keeps his life and writing a visual lark.