50! The Life, Loves & Psyche of a Male Mid-Life Crisis : Volume 1 - The Journey

This is the story of life. It is about love and relationships; about the importance of family; about how real life and human emotions invariably mess each of these up. It looks at death, divorce and dating; losing loved ones; family feuds and other intertwined issues; grief and stress and how we seek to cope (or spectacularly fail to do so) with all that fate and fortune throws at us on our journey through life. It is a series of personal anecdotes intertwined with the author’s view of the world, both then as it happened and especially now he is older and hopefully much wiser. It is written with the benefit of hindsight. If he had had such clarity and understanding at the time, much of it would never have happened. But he didn’t. As we all know: “To be old and wise, you must first be young and stupid”

Cory Y. Standby is a former City of London lawyer who left the legal world behind while still married with four young sons to enjoy a better work/ life balance. Sadly, his marriage eventually broke down and .... 50! .... The Life, Loves & Psyche of a Male Mid-Life Crisis : Volume 1 - The Journey .... explores the issues involved, covers his wild party lifestyle at times since, whilst always seeking to be a good Dad to his boys- a tricky juggling act! 50! "THE LIFE, LOVES & PSYCHE OF A MALE MID-LIFE CRISIS: Volume 1 - The Journey"

This is my first published book, 50! .... hopefully the first of at least three I plan to write in that series looking at all the fun and games, as well as ups and downs, emotional issues etc through life… It's kind of a mix between Wolf of Wall Street, Two and a Half Men, and even some serious emotional roller coaster stuff too!
I heard a few weeks ago the new Ed Sheeran/ Rudimental track 'Bloodstream' and loved it and immediately thought it could make a great soundtrack to the film! And then I saw the video they have made for it, and it’s as if they knew - it's perfect in so many ways! Anyway, here's the link and blurb about my book - look forward to your views at any stage:

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I've finally written the story of my life! (all names changed of course) AND IT'S BEEN PUBLISHED!!! Let me know what you think if you read it, please Cheers Cory!


Essentially the book tracks my life, certainly the main highlights and major emotional issues, from the freedom of childhood, through teenage angst, discovering girls properly and love, the trauma of a fatal car crash, and getting back on track to become a City of London lawyer. There are the main family issues, falling in love, marriage, having kids, struggling to cope with it all, a young family death, concerns about one of our prematurely born twin sons, and ultimately sadly the cracks in our marriage leading to divorce. Amicable for our children initially, then the animosity kicked in months later as we both struggled to come to terms with the loss of our love after 13 years together and our 4 amazing young sons. The story then charts my battles to not lose them, or be excluded from their lives, whilst having to accept that i could no longer see them every day (as I always had) and finding other things, such as dating, drinking and partying, to help fill that void. It tracks my years of post-divorce dating, and then re-marriage, believing (naively as it transpired) that I could rebuild everything - it was all based on foundations of sand and collapsed.

So now as I approach my 50th birthday, as my 3 eldest sons are all now in their early 20's and leaving home, I have had the chance to reflect on my life, the good and bad bits, to try and make sense of it all, and to offer my views on the world (both then as things happened, but also with the benefit of hindsight and wisdom now looking back). I think it covers the whole gamut of human emotions, and those who have read it describe it as gripping and interesting, and certainly a very full life! And hopefully there is more to come, but no longer the wild pursuit of happiness that drove me for so many of the mad years. I look forward to discussing it with you.

Finally, it is written in the third person and using an alias, **Cory is my pen name, given the personal nature of much of it, and I have naturally changed everyone else's names too. However, the tabloid press in the UK got hold of the press release and started exploring salacious aspects of the story for their lurid headlines last month - attached. This led to London legal websites (in my market) revealing my real identity, which was never a huge secret, but perhaps is unkind on others I write about in the book!