Tales of the City
This article is about the novel series; see also Tales of the City (novel) and Tales of the City (TV miniseries)
Tales of the City is a series of seven novels written by American author Armistead Maupin. Tales of the City is also the name of the first book in the series. The first four books in the series were originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle while the fifth book was serialized in the San Francisco Examiner.
In 1993 the first book was made into a television miniseries, Tales of the City, produced by Channel 4 in the UK and screened by PBS in the U.S. in 1994. The second and third books in the series made their television debuts in 1998 and 2001. In a public reading at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London in July 2007, Maupin indicated that it is unlikely that there will be any further mini-series or films made.
As well as the novels, Maupin has collaborated on several Tales-themed musical projects. Anna Madrigal Remembers was a musical work composed by Jake Heggie and performed by choir Chanticleer and mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade on 6 August 1999, for which Maupin provided a new libretto. He also participated in a concert series with Seattle Men's Chorus entitled Tunes From Tales (Music for Mouse), which included readings from his books and music from the era.[1]
In 2007, 18 years after the sixth novel in the series, Sure of You, Maupin released the novel Michael Tolliver Lives. Maupin originally stated that this novel is "NOT a sequel to Tales [of the City] and it's certainly not Book 7 in the series" [2], however he later conceded that "I’ve stopped denying that this is book seven in Tales of the City, as it clearly is ... I suppose I didn’t want people to be thrown by the change in the format, as this is a first person novel unlike the third person format of the Tales of the City books and it’s about one character who interrelates with other characters. Having said that, it is still very much a continuation of the saga and I think I realised it was very much time for me to come back to this territory." [3]
Fans of the series were delighted to have a new chapter but Michael Tolliver Lives was criticized for its thinly veiled autobiographical nature and for being the work of a beloved author trying to remember how he did it first time round.[4]
Maupin has indicated he is now working on a new novel about the Tales of the City characters, commenting that "Whatever I have to offer seems to come through those characters, and I see no reason to abandon them." [5]
Core characters
The series opens with the arrival of Mary Ann Singleton, a naive young woman from Cleveland, Ohio. She finds an apartment at 28 Barbary Lane, the domain of the eccentric marijuana-growing landlady Anna Madrigal.
Mary Ann becomes friends with the other tenants of the building: the hippyish bisexual Mona Ramsey (who, though a central character, is not in all of the books); heterosexual lothario Brian Hawkins; the sinister and cagey roof tenant Norman Neal Williams; and Michael Tolliver, a sweet and personable gay man known to friends as Mouse (as in Mickey Mouse), who becomes very important to the series.
Beyond the house, lovers and friends guide Mary Ann through her San Franciscan adventures. Edgar Halcyon, Mary Ann's and Mona's boss, Edgar's socialite daughter DeDe Halcyon-Day, and her scheming bisexual husband Beauchamp Day all provide a glimpse into a more affluent Californian class, while Mrs. Madrigal's mother and owner of the Blue Moon Lodge brothel, Mother Mucca, brings mystery and comic relief. Mona's ex-lover D'orothea Wilson, returns from a modelling assignment in New York, while Michael's lover and DeDe's gynecologist, Jon Fielding, becomes part of the social group. In the last two books, Thack Sweeney becomes Michael's lover.
Real life people such as Jim Jones and a thinly veiled Elizabeth Taylor are mentioned in the story lines. A prominent closeted gay celebrity is represented as "______ ______" throughout the third novel, with sufficient detail available to deduce that it could be Rock Hudson.
Realism in Tales
The Tales of the City series is lauded for being accurate in its portrait of a time and place in San Francisco's history.[citation needed] Because installments were published so soon after Maupin wrote them, he was able to incorporate many current events into the plot of the series, as well as gauge reader response and modify the story accordingly. At one point Maupin received a letter from a reader who pointed out that one of the characters' names was an anagram, providing Maupin with one of the more memorable and surprising plot twists in the book.[6] Maupin's books are also some of the first to deal with the AIDS epidemic.
A 1977 TIME magazine article compared Tales of the City with similar serial novels that ran in other city newspapers, such as Tangled Lives (Boston), Bagtime (Chicago), and Hardee Mumms' Federal Triangle (Washington, DC).[7]
The complete series
- Tales of the City (1978)
- More Tales of the City (1980)
- Further Tales of the City (1982)
- Babycakes (1984)
- Significant Others (1987)
- Sure of You (1989)
- Michael Tolliver Lives (2007)
Sure of You and Michael Tolliver Lives are the only works to have been created solely as novels; the earlier books comprise writings that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle prior to novelization.
Characters from the Tales of the City series have appeared in supporting roles in Maupin's later novels Maybe The Moon and The Night Listener.
Musical adaptation
With Maupin's cooperation, Tony Award-winning Avenue Q co-writer Jeff Whitty, Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears, and Sisters tour keyboardist John "JJ" Garden are writing a musical stage adaptation they hope to have ready for the 2009-2010 Broadway theatre season.[8][9] It will premiere at the American Conservatory Theater in 2011.
References
- ^ "Seattle Men's Chorus welcomes Armistead Maupin to Benaroya Hall" - Seattle Gay News Online
- ^ Michael Tolliver Lives - BarnesandNoble.com
- ^ "I might well come back to Mr Tolliver one more time" - PinkPaper.com Issue 929, 28 June 2007
- ^ "The City Slicker Loses His Way" - The Guardian, London
- ^ "Tolliver's Travels" - EntertainmentWeekly.com from Issue #939, retrieved 7 June 2007
- ^ "ALL ABOUT ARMISTEAD" - SFGate.com from 19 September 2000, retrieved 23 February 2008
- ^ "The Press: Soap Operas Come to Print". TIME. August 8, 1977. Retrieved February 27, 2010.
{{cite web}}
: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=
(help) - ^ "Tales of the City Heads to the Great White Way," by Adam B. Vary, Entertainment Weekly, March 28, 2008
- ^ ""Tales of the City" heads to the stage". gay.com. 14 March 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-27.
External links
- ArmisteadMaupin.com - official website
- Armistead Maupin discusses Tales of the City on the BBC World Book Club
- Barbary Lane Senior Communities - retirement homes for LGBT people named after the setting of Tales; Introduction by Armistead Maupin