The title of this novel by Elinor Lipman is misleading, since it's really more about the way women act than men.

Melinda LeBlanc is a white former high-school cheerleader who has returned to her small town of Harrow, Massachusetts after several unsuccessful years trying to make it in "the real world." A high school graduate in a college town full of people with multiple degrees, Melinda feels a little under-educated, and her insecurity isn't helped by the fact that she has moved back in with her mother and works at her cousin's florist shop arranging flowers:

"It keeps coming back to one thing, and that's what I do for a living, or what I didn't do between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five when every other Harrowite with half a brain was earning a couple of degrees. Not that this town respects only professors and doctors and lawyers, not by any means; we love our cratspeople with their craggy faces and graying hair, but it helps that they went to Bennington before they started stitching sandals and throwing pots."

When the novel opens, Melinda has temporarily become friends with a former high school classmate, Libby, before "I slipped on the ice that was the core of her character."

Her only dating prospects in town are a local musician, Conrad, with whom she has a standing arrangement (sex, no strings), and an old acquaintance from high school, Dennis--a black anchorman-turned-businessman who owns his own fly-fishing store, with whom Melinda had a one-night stand awhile back and secretly harbors a crush on. The problem is, so does Libby, and Dennis appears interested in neither of them.

Complicating matters further is Dennis' ex-wife Iris, a black professor at the local university who left him for another woman. Iris is prickly, a little bitter, and very controlling:

"He'd had been attracted to the wrong parts of Iris, [Dennis] told me at his sister's wedding. But sometimes you deny stuff, especially when the woman you're with has everything figured out for the both of you. And he'd never do that again--get flattered into a relationship, or let the voice inside him saying 'Something's not right here' be drowned out by the one saying 'Nobody's perfect.'"

Iris and Melinda don't exactly get off on the right foot, but over time, Melinda and Iris form a friendship of sorts which helps both women form a better relationship with Dennis as he and Melinda fall in love. In the process, Iris becomes oddly likeable.

Iris is not a major character in "The Way Men Act," but like the lesbian couple in Lorna Landvik's "The Tall Pine Polka," she is one of the quirky supporting characters that gives the novel its rich texture. Lipman has written several novels, all primarily about heterosexual characters, but she routinely incorporates a gay or lesbian character among the supporting characters in her stories (for example, in her latest novel, "The Pursuit of Alice Thrift," the main character's sister is a lesbian).

Lipman's real talent is a flair for the details, for exploring the nuances of a situation which often reveal the embarrassing truths we try hard to avoid. Her ability to so perfectly capture the idiosyncrasies of human behavior make "The Way Men Act" an entertaining novel for readers of all sexual orientations.

Amazon.com: "The Way Men Act"