Product Description

Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed a singular trail through popular culture -- from a groundbreaking newspaper serial to a classic novel to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales is both a wry comedy of manners and a deeply involving portrait of a vanished era.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #258713 in Books
• Published on: 1989-10-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.com Review
Since 1976, Maupin's Tales of the City has etched itself upon the hearts and minds of its readers, both straight and gay. From a groundbreaking newspaper serial in the San Francisco Chronicle to a bestselling novel to a critically acclaimed PBS series, Tales (all six of them) contains the universe--if not in a grain of sand, then in one apartment house.

From Publishers Weekly
Maupin's alternately playful and sentimental tales depict an all-too-easily satirized population of transients and toffs living in and around San Francisco.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A consummate entertainer who has made a generation

laugh...It is Maupin's Dickensian gift to be able to render love

convincingly." -- -- Edmund White, Times Literary Supplement

A good serial writer can make even a big city feel like a small town.... The only downside is that the stories end, and the reader, who has come to enjoy Maupin's crew more than one's own much less colorful friends, is left with a far duller social life. -- Entertainment Weekly

Customer Reviews

Maupin: Well known, but new to me.
Who am I to review this man's writings? Still, it's fun to be asked to share my ignorance. Many books, by todays' authors, are touted as being hysterically funny, etc. Unfortunately, for me, I find that although I am said to have an excellent sense of humor, these fall rather flat well before the end of the stories.

Maupin allows us to enter the world of the Gay and Straight communities, without forcing either on us as being the "correct" one. I enjoyed how brief he made each chapter, yet (at any given point) tied them together and continued the stories of the several lives, to whom he has introduced us.

There were some "whimsical" moments, and fewer "outright humorous" scenes, however, I had no trouble finishing the book, and look forward to reading his next two installments.

As they used to say on one of the 1950's Teen Dance Shows, on TV, "It's a catchy tune, but a little hard to dance to. I'll rate it as a 7. I will rate this book with 3 stars. If I had laughed, 'til I had tears in my eyes, I'd have given it 5 stars.

An All-Time Favorite
This book will make you laugh, cry, and leave you hungry for more. Do yourself a favor and read the entire series. Maupin creates a coterie of friends that I love and revisit often. They may be fictional, but I think of his characters as family.

Sister Carrie Goes to San Francisco
This is a fun, late-20th Century take on the old theme of the virtuous midwestern girl who moves to the big city. Ulnlike Sister Carrie, though, Mary Ann Singleton is not so much the focus of the book as she is the touchstone by which other characters are measured and reveal themselves. Unfortunately, she lacks some of the emotional depth and appeal of Siste Carrie. Indeed, most of the characters in the book are paper thin. The result can be amusing and an excellent vehicle for satire, but not something that has great literary value. Maupin is more like Tom Wolfe than Dreiser in his ability to spin amusing yarns that have a good sense of the pulse of American culture, but without the depth and pathos that make for great literature.

The real hero of the book is not so much Mary Ann as it is the two most appealing gay characters (Michael Tolliver and the closet gay gynecologist) who, despite their untraditional lifestyles, conduct themselves according to a moral code that would resonate with traditional American and even Christian values. Indeed, perhaps the book is most significant for its ability, 30 years ago in a different and less tolerant time, to portray gay characters realistically and sympathetically.

I find some of the upper class characters to be unbelievable and less than paper thin. Maupin is at his best in portraying the less lofty. Also, as a heterosexual who lived in San Francisco just a couple of years after this was written, I did not witness the ridiculously loose sexual mores portrayed in the book. Either Maupin is exaggerating to an unpardonable degree, or I horribly mis-spent by youth.

The plot is a soap opera, but the book on a whole is entertaining and worthwhile.