Of Men and Their Mothers — Mameve Medwed

All men have mothers is a hard truth that the newly unhyphenated Maisie Grey has learned the hard way. When she finally gets rid of the mama's-boy husband and happily settles down with her teenage son, Tommy, she's still stuck with her irascible mother-in-law, a woman who never liked her, criticized her every step of the way, and yet, as Tommy's grandmother, refuses to exit the family stage gracefully.

Maisie keeps it together with her own business, Factotum, Inc., where she does it all for her clients-- everything from watering plants, typing up lecture notes, and cataloguing cookbooks. In between she balances a relationship with a man who still lives in--where else but?--his mother's house and mentors her sole employee, Darlene, now fighting for custody of both her breast milk and her child. Burned by the MIL-from-hell, Maisie vows that when Tommy brings someone home, she will be empathetic and supportive, and envelop the young woman in a loving embrace . . . the opposite of her own experience.

But along comes September Silva, with her piercings, short skirts, black nail polish, and stay-out-all-night attitude, completely unsuitable for Maisie's teenage son! When September's mother kicks her out, Maisie is forced to take a clear-eyed look at class differences, preconceived notions of men and women, and what it means to be a wife, a friend, and a nonjudgmental mother. When do you let go? And how do you let go if you're sure your son is making a very big mistake?

Maisie's challenge: to build a grown-up life and to find a man grown-up enough to have disentangled himself from those unrelenting, all-engulfing apron strings.