Review of Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
I first became aware of Maupin’s gay classic Tales of the City after watching the recent TV adaptation on Netflix, which follows the original characters in to the present day. The stories were first published in serial form in a San Francisco newspaper, then later as a series of novels. I started by reading the omnibus edition containing the first three novels, which are set in the late 70s and early 80s, and chart the lives of a range of different characters, gay and straight, cis and trans, living in San Francisco. Mary Ann Singleton is a naïve fish out of water who takes the spontaneous decision to move to the big city from the Midwest, moving into a boarding house at 28 Barbary Lane run by enigmatic, weed-smoking landlady Anna Madrigal. We also see the lives of fellow inhabitants of the boarding house: Michael ‘Mouse’ Tolliver, a young gay man hoping to meet Mr Right, as well as hippy Mona Ramsey and womaniser Brian Hawkins. The stories also feature characters from the upper echelons of San Francisco life, such as Mary Ann’s boss Edgar Halcyon, his spoilt daughter DeDe Halcyon Day and her philandering husband Beauchamp Day. The early books have an episodic feel, but Maupin weaves together the lives of seemingly unrelated characters in intriguing ways, with the mystery of Anna Madrigal and her secretive past at the story’s heart. The tales are light and witty, and unlike the later novels written in the shadow of the AIDs crisis, paint a happy and carefree picture of LGBTQ life in San Francisco. There are numerous hilarious moments, usually involving Mary Ann’s perpetual cluelessness. There’s the odd joke that hasn’t aged well, but for the most part the novels are forward-thinking, with a trans woman character depicted positively and sensitively. Tales of the City is highly entertaining and provides a fascinating glimpse into the past – it’s easy to see why its popularity has endured for more than fifty years.
- By Katherine Hughes, Academic Liaison Librarian at York St John
