Born in St. Louis in 1941, McIntyre spent nearly two decades in the corporate trenches working for Procter & Gamble before branching out on his own for the next 30 years, founding a foodservice sales and marketing agency. In 2010, he was diagnosed with throat cancer and decided to sell his business while undergoing treatment. The story of four life-altering months in 2010, during which he transitioned into retirement while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment, lie at the center of his first memoir, There Are No Answers Here, Only Questions (2023). In this follow-up, the author covers the next 14 years, from 2010-2024, as he recovered from cancer and forged a new life after retirement. Like many who leave their careers, he grappled with adjusting to a new life. “My company had been my ‘identity,’” he recalls, “But now, with my identity gone, who was I?” As detailed in the book, he ultimately found a new purpose through exercise and community service. Guided by the motto “poco a poco” (little by little), he rebuilt his physical health, first by walking in the backyard, then by traversing a parking lot to get to his car, and eventually by running short distances. Ultimately, he became an avid swimmer and cycler—until he met another setback when he was thrown from his bicycle after being struck by an inattentive driver and sustained a brain injury.
Embracing the Latin maxim Per Adversa Satisfactio Est (“satisfaction through adversity”), McIntyre is relentlessly optimistic, emphasizing how each setback led him to feel greater gratitude for his loved ones. He also found a new post-retirement identity in the act of giving back, working with Habitat for Humanity building houses in Charlotte, North Carolina, and El Salvador. The author’s Christian faith is recurring theme—the work contains multiple biblical references, though McIntyre never proselytizes. Indeed, he embraces a “faith that transcends faith,” emphasizing the “oneness of all things” that “binds us together.” While the text includes the occasional flashback to the author’s years in corporate America or his experiences as a fraternity brother at a small, liberal arts college, the memoir’s unique emphasis on McIntyre’s post-retirement life—with its humbling array of identity crises, health scares, and the author’s decision to move with his wife to a continuous care retirement community—makes the book stand out in a genre stereotypically defined by self-aggrandizement. McIntyre’s writing style blends poignant reflections with often humorous, self-deprecating anecdotes. While inside an MRI machine stripped down to his underwear with a traumatic brain injury, for instance, the author recalls utilizing one of his meditation practices in which he repeated “Gracias a Dios”(Thank God) while taking deep breaths; it was during this moment of Zen focus and gratitude that the medical technician told him to “stop it and breathe like a normal person.” Another chapter recalls his failed attempts at becoming a novelist: He put chapters of a lighthearted rom-com story on his blog until he realized “no one was reading it anymore.” These moments of humorous self-awareness, blended with the author’s emotional maturity, make for a sincere, engaging memoir.
