LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Booked Solid: A ReviewTales of the City Series (Six Parts), by Armistead Maupin |
Rebecca James |
By 1976, San Francisco's charm had earned it the affection of yet another new resident. Armistead Maupin, a native North Carolinian, was a recent transplant with the Associated Press when he began publishing his Tales of the City novels serially in the San Francisco Chronicle. His smart, funny and hopelessly human characters captured the hearts of a generation of readers. Now, nearly twenty-five years later, the series of six novels still holds its own in bookstore sales, attracting continuing interest from television and movie producers. For those who missed it the first time around, or maybe for anyone who wants to revisit their friends at 28 Barbary Lane, a special hardcover two volume set has been released and is available at Lambda Rising along with the paperback versions. Maupin's Tales began in the mid-70s with an eclectic family of friends rooming with Anna Madrigal. The eccentric, middle aged woman welcomed her "children" into her home at 28 Barbary Lane, an old house teetering at the tiptop of a rickety flight of wooden steps. Michael, Mary Ann, Mona, Brian and others wove their way through Anna's days relating their mishaps in love and life through a cloud of the best homegrown pot San Francisco ever saw. The kids were in their twenties then and Anna served as surrogate mother to them all, always available with a hug, a tissue and a big fat joint. The soap-opera style of their encounters bordered on insanely coincidental with just enough real life thrown in to make readers feel like they had come home. At twenty-something (and honey, that always means the latter half), Michael was getting tired of meaningless sex, bad drugs, and stupid men. The cycle of bars and baths was hard to break, though, and his escapades were always doused with plenty of sarcasm and self-deprecating wit. From the snotty A-gays' social set to angry activists, Michael's lovers each taught him, if inadvertently, a lesson about himself and what he is willing to tolerate in his life. Maupin's novels followed Michael through the late eighties, which means he saw firsthand the devastating impact of AIDS in San Francisco. One of the best aspects of Maupin's Tales is that he created the characters in the mid-70s but he allowed them to reflect the changes in society and assimilate them into their lives. AIDS became a large part of their lives in the later novels but the personalities were already fully developed. Readers experienced the impact of changes on characters they already knew and loved, unlike today's novels which, written with AIDS as an established part of our lives, somehow let AIDS become part of the identity of the person. Maupin's Michael is allowed to remain an individual reacting to the AIDS crisis. Michael's best friend was a woman named Mary Ann Singleton. As her name would imply, she was never very good at staying in a relationship. Readers watched helplessly as Mary Ann made one bad choice after another. When we finally thought she'd found her match...well, just don't get too attached to anyone in Maupin's stories. Just like life, people come and go. Mary Ann clawed her way from secretary to star over the decade she spent at Barbary Lane, but she learned to close her heart to the people she left behind. Brian, originally a character in his own right, chose Mary Ann over the swinging singles and taught his party-boy self how to cook, clean and even raise a daughter while Mary Ann hobnobbed with the rich and famous. He and Michael watched her go, and she never looked back. Mona Ramsey joined the crew at Barbary Lane at the urging of Anna Madrigal. She quickly became involved in a mystery that turned her family upside down. A weekend trip to a whorehouse in the desert leads to discoveries about her darling landlady that made readers laugh, cry and love the whole bunch more than ever. With her Nancy Drew days behind her, Mona disappeared for a few years, then resurfaced in Europe. Michael found her as she was about to marry an aristocrat who eventually fulfilled his life's ambition to drive taxis in San Francisco. The arrangement served Mona just fine, although the women were a little harder to find when you lived in a crumbling castle. Readers eventually leave her on vacation with her, uh, parent, Anna Madrigal, hunting down dykes on the island of Lesbos. Maupin also intertwines his stories with the ills of California's high society. From gender-exclusive empowerment retreats to illegitimate, mixed-race children raised by lesbian supermodels, they by no means had it easier than our Barbary Lane friends did. If anything, his or her commitment to secrecy and snobbery made life more difficult for everyone involved. Their fear of tacky, clueless, social climbers like Prue Giroux made them powerlessly comic. The entire series was an addictive adventure from start to finish; it spoke to straight people as much as gays and lesbians. Maupin captured the essence of a city that came to stand for progressive, forward thinking politics and peopleand managed to justify the reputation at the same time he poked fun at it. Tales of the City earned a place in post-Stonewall history. It is every bit as funny as when it first came out, if not more so for the now ancient gems of trend that came to represent a generation coming of age. Some of you remember poppers, glory holes, Lacoste shirts and Mary Tyler Moore better than you care to admit. Other readers were just being conceived when the term "nellie" was still used. All of you deserve a ride back in time with Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. The entire series is Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City, Babycakes, Significant Others, and Sure of You. Volumes one and two have been made into television movies; volume three is in the works. Rebecca James lives and reads in Rehoboth Beach where she is a certified massage practitioner. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 10, No. 7, June 16, 2000. |