Life with Mae: A Detroit Family Memoir

Great Lakes Books Series

by Neal Shine

In Life with Mae, the late Neal Shine combines an engaging memoir of his family life in prewar Detroit with a biography of his mother, Mae, whose vibrant spirit and fierce affection left an indelible mark on her three sons and their friends and neighbors.

Mae was born in 1909 in the small town of Carrick-on-Shannon, Ireland, where her father ran the depot that distributed Guiness Stout. Going into service as a housekeeper at fourteen, Mae quickly saw that the only future she had in Ireland was as a servant. By the time she was eighteen, she had saved enough money from her housekeeping job for a one-way ticket to the United States, where she eventually settled in Detroit.

Shine, longtime editor and former publisher of the Detroit Free Press, tells his story in a series of entertaining interconnected vignettes, reflecting on his mother, his family life in Detroit, and later his journey to visit family in Ireland. Whether recounting Mae's feud with a local tavern owner, her distrust of the food sold by local grocers, or her standoff with a department store deliveryman who had come to repossess their furniture, Shine lovingly conveys his mother's fierce protective streak, her effervescent personality, and her outspoken identification with the poor. For fans of Shine's insightful and humorous storytelling, as well as fellow Detroiters and readers with Irish roots, Life with Mae will be an entertaining and satisfying read.

219 pages, Hardcover

First published September 19, 2007

Reviews

[Dominique King · Rating 3 out of 5]

Newspaperman Neal Shine's affectionate memoir of his mother and growing up in Detroit during the 30s, 40s and beyond. It was a fun book, recognizing many of the locations...but the story happened well before my own time. Mae Shine came to America from Ireland because she wanted something better for herself, and eventually for her children, than she might have had growing up after starting as a domestic during the late 1920s. It's a story I think many of us forgot...or never really knew much about in the first place...but it was a story that shaped so many of the folks we knew and grew up with.

[Kylie Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful tribute to the courageous women in our lives

[Sam Mckiernan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first comedy that i read and after reading this book i hope to read more this is a tale of a women with true gut someone who was not afraid to do what she wanted and it is a great novel and i recomend to all readers who want a god laugh

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mae is the mother we'd all love _ and hate _ to have. She was feisty, outspoken, always ready to try something new, full of love and quite willing to embarrass her boys.