strange and random happenstance

Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Published by: Harper Perennial
Publication Date: 1978
Format: Paperback, 371 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Mary Ann Singleton went to San Francisco on vacation and realized she was home. Nothing her parents said could lure her back to Cleveland. Her life was finally beginning, as soon as she moves out of Connie's place, which has more kitsch than Mary Ann can stand. Connie and her were high school acquaintances and Connie happens to be the only person Mary Ann knows in San Francisco. But that won't be for long once she is embraced by 28 Barbary Lane and it's eccentric landlady Mrs. Madrigal. As Mrs. Madrigal is fond of saying, she doesn't pick her tenants, the house does. But she is responsible for the welcome joint taped to the door, and you're welcome. Across the hall from Mary Ann is oversexed Brian Hawkins, who likes being one of the only straight men in the city and views Mary Ann as a challenge. Downstairs is Mona Ramsey, Mrs. Madrigal's favorite. Upstairs, well, Mary Ann didn't even realize there was an upstairs. And in random twists of fate and happenstance that is part of the magic that is San Francisco, all their lives start to weave together and overlap and conjoin in the most interesting ways. Mona's best friend Michael "Mouse" Tolliver moves in when he and his boyfriend breakup, a boyfriend who Mary Ann happened to give a hollandaise recipe to while prowling the Safeway Marina with Connie. Brian has an affairette with Connie. Mrs. Madrigal takes up with Mona's boss Edgar Halcyon while Mary Ann falls for his son-in-law Beauchamp Day whose flirtatious ways might be hiding something deeper. The connections and relationships they forge all swirl around Barbary Lane and at the heart of it all is the benevolent and mysterious Mrs. Madrigal. Because she does have a secret, but so does everyone. Only hers might be a doozy. One people are willing to die for.

Tales of the City was originally a column in the San Francisco Chronicle leading it to be compared to Dickens and other Victorian authors whose work was serialized. Which is valid, but those authors didn't have the limitations of writing by the column inch. Each "chapter" is more a chapterette. Which makes it easier to indulge in just "one more chapter" much like DeDe Halcyon Day scarfing down a whole bag of chips in the doctor's waiting room you WILL sacrifice sleep as you devour this series. And that's the hard thing about writing a review for this book because it's more an epic soap opera stretched out over nine volumes that span forty years without real arcs, it's more episodic. In fact I couldn't remember what big moments capped this volume and I was surprised that we actually learn so little, but then again, Maupin was in it for the long game, one major plot point wasn't resolved until Mary Ann in Autumn in 2010. And I can tell you, if I didn't have, you know, a life and obligations, I'd be tearing through the remaining eight volumes at breakneck speed. Because the thing about Tales of the City is that these characters are more than friends they are family, chosen family. They can annoy you and do stupid things, you can be yelling at them hoping they can hear you, but at the end of the day there's no line they can cross that will make you cut them out of your life. In fact, when I first read this series I strongly related to Mary Ann, she's from the Midwest and naive and a bit uptight, check, check, and check, but what she does to Brian in Babycakes, I was so pissed at her, because it was something I would never do. And yes, I realize I am not the character, but this gave me many feelings rereading this book. I no longer related to Mary Ann but I understood her, she was still a part of me. This whole series is a part of me. From watching the adaptations with the dreadful Mona late at night to making ramen with my cat in the kitchen trying to get in one more chapter before the water boiled. This series is in my bones as I'm sure it is in many peoples. Now if I can just find some time to reread the next eight volumes. Who am I kidding, I'll sacrifice sleep.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 28 Barbary Lane, Anna Madrigal, Armistead Maupin, Brian Hawkins, Charles Dickens, LGBTQIA+, Mary Ann in Autumn, Michael Tolliver, Mona Ramsey, Pride, San Francisco, Serialized, Soap Opera, Tales of the City

Mary Ann in Autumn by Armistead Maupin
Published by: Harper
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy
Mary Ann has returned to the city of her youth. Full of familiar faces both welcome and unwelcome. Her life is in major upheaval following the realization that her life coach and her husband are having an affair and she has been diagnosed with Cancer. Heading to seek refuge in San Francisco and lick her wounds, she takes up residence with her oldest friend, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver and his young partner Ben. Mary Ann sees her life as a series of probable missteps. She left her first husband Brian, and her adopted daughter Shawna, to be an East Coast tv star, which lasted all of five minutes. Following which she set herself up as a housewife and raised her stepson. Her dreams and ambitions for celebrity thwarted as well as the lives she ruined back in the Bay Area. Ben cunningly thinks that what Mary Ann needs more than anything is to realize she was someone and that this adoration and love will do more to help her heal than anything. Enter Facebook. She connects with many friends and fans who remember her from her old show back in San Francisco. From her silly hats worn when the Queen of England arrived, to her sub par interviews that have a campy nostalgia among the gay community. But this is also when the mysterious messages start to arrive from Fogbound One. Hinting at a dark secret in Mary Ann's past that she has never revealed. A dark secret that will help her connect to the daughter she abandoned. Shawna has followed Mary Ann's love of journalism, only in a more modern and outrageous method. Shawna is a sex blogger. But she's getting sick of the hipster, Betty Page look and wants something more. Enter "Leia." A homeless woman with a mysterious past. A past that Shawna hopes to uncover. A past that might lead back to her "mother." Can Mary Ann get a second chance at the life she threw away? Or will she become even more lost in the fog of her past? And what of those who orbit her?

Returning to the narrative style of short character studies whose lives all magically interweave, we see Maupin once again at the top of his game. Forgiven is the first person narrative style of Michael Tolliver Lives which I hated in it's overly sexual wallowing. Maupin excels at slowly weaving his story, thread by thread, where the web forms and then you realize how all the disparate elements form together into one cohesive whole. And here, he's not just working with the present, but Mary Ann's past is brought in as well. Those horrors not spoken of are back with a vengeance. The characters of the Tales of the City books are the voices of a generation. They will go down as some of the most memorable characters who so well captured a defining moment in our history. Maupin's stories have encapsulated the world as it was happening, particularly when these stories ran as a weekly serial and could move and flow with current events. Which, to an extent, works against him in this book. The earlier books, being separated from the now by a decade or more, feel timeless, at least to me. But once you start throwing Facebook around, it just seems too linked into the now. Of course, this may seem contradictory, because it was his capturing of the time that made the books what they were. Maybe I'm just a hypocrite, or maybe I'm just sick of references to Facebook. In his defense, he uses Facebook in a way that Hitchcock would be proud of. Maupin has always had that bit of Hitchcock in his more successful novels. Perhaps it's just San Francisco bringing out the macabre and the mysterious, or perhaps it's something in the water.

When Maupin starts a little mystery and slowly links it back and loops it around, I can't help but stay up into the wee hours to see where he will finally lead me. His web didn't fully enthrall me this time. Within the denouement, things started to fall apart. Everything almost seemed rosy in the end. After the bleak humor with a dark edge, it felt that Maupin forced his characters into a happy ending. He has never been shy of the darker endings before, so is it age that has mellowed him? His new young love that Ben is modelled on? I almost felt like there'd be a sing song when all the characters came together. I just think there was one too many pairs of rose tinted glasses for my liking. Mary Ann is Cancer free now? From someone who has had many Cancer battles in her family, I can say from experience, it doesn't work like that. It's not a few weeks playing with Facebook, a little surgery and you're better. It's a bloody fight that can only be won by those who struggle hard. Mouse's struggle with AIDS has been a big theme of these books, so it seems that, one, Mary Ann's Cancer is unrealistic and two, he was giving us a bone, a curable illness among the incurable. Again, rose tinting the story. This is what brought the book down a full star in the final analysis, that and why can't we have Brian and Mary Ann in the same book. It seems that since their breakup we are only allotted one. And while Mary Ann was wonderful and back to her original charm, unlike the harpy she became in later books, I have to say, I missed Brian, I have a soft spot in my heart for him.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: AIDS, Armistead Maupin, Betty Page, Cancer, Facebook, Mary Ann in Autumn, Michael Tolliver Lives, San Francisco, Tales of the City

Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin
Published by: Harper Perennial
Publication Date: June 12th, 2007
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy
Michael Tolliver has survived. Almost 20 years since he found out he was HIV Positive, he has outlived many who thought they would be burying him. Thack is long gone, but now he has the much younger Ben, who loves Michael not just for his "daddy" status, but for who he is. Anna is still around, though the house on Barbary Lane has been sold. Brian still runs the nursery, having bought Michael out when he decided to do free lance gardening and landscaping. No one has much contact with Mary Ann since her desertion, but her daughter is working in media in the spirit of her mother, though as a sex blogger, versus a television host. These people are Michael's "logical" family, compared to his "biological" family back in Florida which is preparing itself for the death of the matriarch. A strange thing is happening to Michael, in a time when he didn't think he'd see tomorrow, he is now watching those he loves die. From Mona to his mother, the grief others would bear for him is now his own. But with the grief there is a joy. The joy of each day, the joy in finding Ben, the joy in finding some sort of acceptance from his mother, the joy in reconnecting with his brother. When you live in a world where once all was lost, finding these little joys, and sometimes the bigger joys of a threesome, mean everything.

Taking a drastic break from the style of the previous novels in the Tales of the City series, here we don't get vignettes on the characters lives, but we follow Michael in a first person narrative and learn about what has happened to the characters through his revelations and reminiscences. While I applaud Maupin for taking such a risk in diverging from his set tone, I don't think it really works. The reason the Tales of the City books captured me was their humorous take on life flitting from one character to the other and how they all somehow were intertwined in the greater scheme of things. Through triumph and tragedy, we followed that motley crew. Now we have a kind of, this is your life, where Michael goes, "hey, remember Mona, she's dead." It's like little call outs to the past with terse summaries and no development. Instead we find ourselves in a world of aging gay men, where Michael has lucked out and got himself a young'un, but they're perfectly willing to have a very graphic three way. The Mouse of the past, who was scared of the disease he carried, seems now cavalier about sex because apparently everyone assumes everyone is positive. This just seemed a little too tawdry to me, and considering the level it takes to make me squeamish, yeah, this wasn't really expected. But every once in awhile there was a glimpse of the pervious books. With Anna picking out a cat at animal control, because the humane society animals seemed to have it too good. Or in my favorite part, Michael's GPS system which he's named Carlotta, after the mad Carlotta in Vertigo. This being because one time, for no particular reason she said "There is no fifth destination." This non sequitur has now become a phrase of choice in the Tolliver household, and this phrase gives me hope for the next book, Mary Ann in Autumn... because as much as some aspects of this book annoyed me, I need to know what happens to these beloved characters.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anna Madrigal, Armistead Maupin, Carlotta Valdes, GPS, HIV, Mary Ann in Autumn, Michael Tolliver, Michael Tolliver Lives, Tales of the City, Vertigo

Mary Ann in Autumn by Armistead Maupin
Published by: Harper
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A hilarious and touching new installment of Armistead Maupin's beloved Tales of the City series

Twenty years have passed since Mary Ann Singleton left her husband and child in San Francisco to pursue her dream of a television career in New York. Now a pair of personal calamities has driven her back to the city of her youth and into the arms of her oldest friend, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, a gardener happily ensconced with his much-younger husband.

Mary Ann finds temporary refuge in the couple's backyard cottage, where, at the unnerving age of fifty-seven, she licks her wounds and takes stock of her mistakes. Soon, with the help of Facebook and a few old friends, she begins to reengage with life, only to confront fresh terrors when her checkered past comes back to haunt her in a way she could never have imagined. After the intimate first-person narrative of Maupin's last novel, Michael Tolliver Lives, Mary Ann in Autumn marks the author's return to the multicharacter plotlines and darkly comic themes of his earlier work. Among those caught in Mary Ann's orbit are her estranged daughter, Shawna, a popular sex blogger; Jake Greenleaf, Michael's transgendered gardening assistant; socialite DeDe Halcyon-Wilson; and the indefatigable Anna Madrigal, Mary Ann's former landlady at 28 Barbary Lane. More than three decades in the making, Armistead Maupin's legendary Tales of the City series rolls into a new age, still sassy, irreverent, and curious, and still exploring the boundaries of the human experience with insight, compassion, and mordant wit."

A new Tales of the City Novel! I've been waiting all year for this, so sorry if I'm gone for a few days, MUST READ NOW!

Virals by Kathy Riechs
Published by: Razorbill
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Tory Brennan, niece of acclaimed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (of the Bones novels and hit TV show), is the leader of a ragtag band of teenage "sci-philes" who live on a secluded island off the coast of South Carolina. When the group rescues a dog caged for medical testing on a nearby island, they are exposed to an experimental strain of canine parvovirus that changes their lives forever.

As the friends discover their heightened senses and animal-quick reflexes, they must combine their scientific curiosity with their newfound physical gifts to solve a cold-case murder that has suddenly become very hot-if they can stay alive long enough to catch the killer's scent.

Fortunately, they are now more than friends- they're a pack. They are Virals."

A YA book that's a spin off of Bones! Count me doubly sold.

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemison
Published by: Orbit
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2010
Format: Paperback, 416 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The gods have broken free after centuries of slavery, and the world holds its breath, fearing their vengeance. The saga of mortals and immortals continues in THE BROKEN KINGDOMS. In the city of Shadow, beneath the World Tree, alleyways shimmer with magic and godlings live hidden among mortalkind. Oree Shoth, a blind artist, takes in a homeless man who glows like a living sun to her strange sight. This act of kindness engulfs Oree in a nightmarish conspiracy. Someone, somehow, is murdering godlings, leaving their desecrated bodies all over the city. Oree's peculiar guest is at the heart of it, his presence putting her in mortal danger — but is it him the killers want, or Oree? And is the earthly power of the Arameri king their ultimate goal, or have they set their sights on the Lord of Night himself?"

The first book in N.K. Jemison's Inheritance trilogy was all the rage this year at WisCon. She was also a really great speaker and nice at the signing, making it another must buy for me! Though naming it the Inheritance Trilogy, when there's already one out there... not the wisest idea Orbit!

Pegasus by Robin McKinley
Published by: Putnam
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Because of a thousand-year-old alliance between humans and pagasi, Princess Sylviianel is ceremonially bound to Ebon, her own Pegasus, on her twelfth birthday. The two species coexist peacefully, despite the language barriers separating them. Humans and pegasi both rely on specially-trained Speaker magicians as the only means of real communication.

But its different for Sylvi and Ebon. They can understand each other. They quickly grow close-so close that their bond becomes a threat to the status quo-and possibly to the future safety of their two nations.

New York Times bestselling Robin McKinley weaves an unforgettable tale of unbreakable friendship, mythical creatures and courtly drama destined to become a classic."

I'm so a child of the 80s when I see a book about a Pegasus and must own it! Serendipity Classics, you taught me well!

Wolfsbane by Patricia Briggs
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2010
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Shapeshifting mercenary Aralorn leads a dangerous existence. Now she must return home for her noble father, the Lyon of Lambshold, has passed away. But when Aralorn and her companion Wolf arrive, they find he's not dead, but ensorcelled by the ae'Magi, using him as a conduit to destroy Aralorn and Wolf. She must overcome this mysterious mist or fall to the blackest of magic. "

Yeah new Briggs book! Yeah!

Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris
Published by: Berkley
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2010
Format: Paperback, 288 Pages
 To Buy
The official patter:
"Lightning-struck sleuth Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver take a break from looking for the dead to visit the two little girls they both think of as family. But as they travel to Texas, memories of their horrible childhood resurface. Family secrets ensnare them both, as Tolliver learns his father is out of jail and Harper finally discovers what happened to her missing sister Cameron so many years before. And what she finds will change her world forever."

I just love this series, and even if this is the end, it was a damn satisfying ending.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Armistead Maupin, Charlaine Harris, Grave Secret, Harper Connelly, Katy Riechs, Mary Ann in Autumn, N.K.Jemison, Patricia Briggs, Pegasus, Robin McKinley, The Broken Kingdoms, Virals, Wolfsbane