Life with Mae:
$24.95
Also order from WSU
On September 14, 2007 – on what would have been Neal’s 77th birthday – Wayne State University Press posthumously published “Life with Mae,” his last and most enduring gift to us. The memoir of his mother, Mary Ellen Conlon Shine, her life in Ireland and how that shaped her life in Detroit is filled with entertaining vignettes, touching remembrances and humorous anecdotes.
Upon his mother’s death at age 78 in 1987, Neal wrote that Mae Shine “was absolutely full of life. She had an enthusiasm for living that was unequaled.” He worked for a few years on the book of his mother’s life, turned the manuscript into WSU Press in the fall of 2006 and received the edited manuscript shortly before his death. His children and grandchildren picked up where he left off, shepherding the project from the editing process through publication.
This is how Neal described his book, “Life with Mae,” in a WSU Press author questionnaire:
“Mae” is essentially the story of three brothers, including the author, growing up in Detroit in the 1930s and 1940s with a remarkable woman – their mother. Calling her “remarkable” really misses the point by a wide margin. Better words to describe her probably should include outrageous and outspoken to the point of bluntness.
She was born in 1909 in the small town of Carrick-on-Shannon, Ireland, where her father ran the depot that distributed Guinness Stout to the pubs in the region. When she was 14 she was put into service as the housekeeper for a prominent doctor in her town. As hard as she tried to imagine it differently, the only future she culd see for herself in Ireland was as a servant. She saved her money and when she had enough for a one-way ticket to the United States, she left. She was 18.
She was a woman of enormous certainties and one of the dominant principles in her life was that nothing was on the level. She believed that we lived in a society that essentially consisted of the “haves” and the “have-nots,” and that the odds were heavily weighted in favor of the “haves.” She considered herself the unofficial representative of the “have-nots” and took the role seriously.
She was the fierce protector of the clan and presided over our childhood, half guardian angel, half police officer. She worried constantly about being “taken” and did not have a high trust level. She believed, for example, that neighborhood merchants could not always be counted on to deal honestly with their customers. As a result, her sons spent much of their childhood returning groceries that did not meet her standards, which were always significantly higher than those set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the State Department of Health.
They were sent back with cans that were dented, fruit that was bruised, slightly wilted lettuce, soft tomatoes, bananas mottled with brown spots, flaccid celery, mushy green peppers, meat, especially hamburger, that was sticky to the touch, eggs that were too small or carried the remnants of henhouse residue, lunch meat sliced too thick or too thin and hot dogs with traces of color not indigenous to the original product.
She was also a woman with a vibrant spirit, the gift of laughter and an abundance of love, all of which she generously lavished on her children.
