Publisher's Synopsis
I retired as a criminal and labor lawyer after 37 years. I captured those years in the poetry that is this book. My romances seemed to ebb and flow with the difficulty or ease of my successes in professional life. Pot bust clients made my writing somewhat jovial while defending death penalty cases brought out my darker side which weighed heavily on some relationships. Through it all I remained an incurable romantic - with a heavy dose of attitude. After two marriages I spent the next thirty-four years as a confirmed bachelor, in a lifestyle that rivaled Charlie Sheen. During those years I had beaucoup time to contemplate what life and love is really all about. Remember, I was evolving through those highly contradictory times - the 60's and 70's - times when, though my grandmother had taught me to open doors for women, and my mother appreciated it, some women would shout "sexist pig" for such an act of courtesy. Many women, themselves searching for self identity, did all they could to strip men of theirs. The "sexual revolution" and "women's lib" were actually a contradiction in terms - some women shunned men altogether while others slept with all they could meet. The frustration of relationships during those troubled but soul-searching times appear frequently in my writing. I have now been happily married for the past 14 years. My wife, Marcia, is ecstatic that I have left behind the "attitude" along with the practice of law. She thanks all the women that went before and helped shape me into a peaceful, loving and highly individual friend and lover. She met me after the right side of my brain had taken over, and partially anesthetized the left side. Now I am in love for real - as well as an avid trout fly fisherman, writer and photographer - proving there is always hope, even for lawyers. For more of me and Marcia please visit www.communityartgallery.com. For all books by me and Ruth Rosenthal go to www.PaulnRuthsBookstore.blogspot.com
