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Armistead Maupin

Author of Tales of the City

39+ Works 22,278 Members 418 Reviews 88 Favorited

About the Author

Armistead Maupin was born in Washington D.C. on May 13, 1944. He received a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served as a naval officer in the Mediterranean and with the River Patrol Force in Vietnam. He worked as a reporter for a newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, show more before being assigned to the San Francisco bureau of the Associated Press in 1971. In 1976, he launched his groundbreaking Tales of the City serial in the San Francisco Chronicle. The series describes a group of characters that live together in a boarding house in San Francisco. Eventually, these Tales were collected into a series of six novels. In 1993, the British Broadcasting Company adapted them for a television series that aired on PBS in 1994. His other works include Maybe the Moon, Michael Tolliver Lives, and The Days of Anna Madrigal. The Night Listener was adapted into a movie starring Robin Williams and Toni Collette. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Armistead Maupin (left) at the Sundance Film Festival, 2006. Photo by Jere

Series

Works by Armistead Maupin

Tales of the City (1978) 4,956 copies
More Tales of the City (1980) 2,634 copies
Further Tales of the City (1982) 2,357 copies
Babycakes (1984) 2,003 copies
Significant Others (1987) 1,841 copies
Sure of You (1989) 1,821 copies
The Night Listener (2000) 1,565 copies
Michael Tolliver Lives (2007) 1,387 copies
Maybe the Moon (1992) 1,127 copies
Mary Ann in Autumn (2010) 860 copies
The Days of Anna Madrigal (2014) 530 copies
28 Barbary Lane (1990) 419 copies
Back to Barbary Lane (1990) 289 copies
Logical Family: A Memoir (2017) 273 copies
Mona of the Manor (2024) 45 copies

Associated Works

The Berlin Stories (1945) — Introduction, some editions — 2,170 copies
The Faber Book of Gay Short Fiction (1992) — Contributor — 321 copies
The Letter Q: Queer Writers' Notes to their Younger Selves (2012) — Contributor — 261 copies
Tom of Finland XXL (2009) — some editions — 92 copies
The Celluloid Closet [1995 film] (1995) — Self — 89 copies
Man of My Dreams: Provocative Writing on Men Loving Men (1996) — Contributor — 75 copies
Milk: A Pictorial History of Harvey Milk (2009) — Foreword — 58 copies
Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City: Part 3 — Original novel — 5 copies
Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City: Part 2 — Original novel — 5 copies

Tagged

1970s (152) 20th century (220) America (85) American (212) American fiction (118) American literature (210) anthology (83) Armistead Maupin (79) Berlin (124) California (227) contemporary fiction (83) ebook (106) fiction (4,221) friendship (101) gay (1,007) gay fiction (441) gay men (90) Germany (124) glbt (121) homosexuality (123) humor (452) Kindle (85) lesbian (91) lgbt (332) LGBTQ (218) literature (179) non-fiction (87) novel (487) own (103) queer (274) read (368) relationships (162) Roman (112) San Francisco (1,352) series (308) short stories (206) Tales of the City (452) to-read (790) unread (87) USA (210)

Common Knowledge

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Reviews

[re: book 1, finished 2016-02-17]

A loving portrait of 1970s San Francisco, with "oh no they DIDN'T!" moments that made me audibly gasp about every ten pages. I want to read all of them forever. Easy to read; you can tell it was originally serialized.

The way Maupin handles some things (trans issues---okay, it's not brought up in this book, but it was pretty obvious to me that Anna is trans) feels a bit dated, but it fits with the times. The mocking treatment of the white characters' racism seemed dead on to me, but be warned that they say and do some pretty horrible stuff.… (more)
 
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caedocyon | 9 other reviews | Feb 26, 2024 |
Mostly funny anecdotes. A little self-indulgent. But I mostly enjoyed reading it.

I'm not certain if the gory details of how racist his parents and family were, and how he was when growing up (into his twenties), are productive? Slurs abound. Like, Armistead, I think you're trying to be honest and transparent about where you came from and what you used to believe, but did you ever have a black character in Tales or no? And the (literal) bed built by the enslaved people your ancestors owned, you still sleep comfortably in it?… (more)
 
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caedocyon | 10 other reviews | Feb 23, 2024 |
Gabriel Noone, a writer whose late-night radio stories have brought him into the home of millions, is in the midst of a painful separation from his longtime lover when a publisher sends him proofs of a remarkable book: the memoir of an ailing thirteen-year-old boy who suffered horrific abuse at the hands of his parents. Now living with his adoptive mother, Pete Lomax is not only a brave and gifted diarist but also a devoted listener to Noone's show. When Noone phones the boy to offer encouragement, it soon becomes clear that Pete sees in this heartsick middle-aged storyteller the loving father he has always wanted. Thus begins an extraordinary friendship that only grows deeper as the boy's health deteriorates, freeing Noone to unlock his innermost feelings.

Then, out of the blue, troubling questions arise, exploding Noone's comfortable assumptions and causing his ordered existence to spin wildly out of control. As he walks a vertiginous line between truth and illusions, he is finally forced to confront all of his relationships--familial, romantic, and erotic.
… (more)
 
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Milwaukee_LGBT_Ctr | 31 other reviews | Feb 18, 2024 |
I had a hard time reading this book, but liked the characters. I switched halfway through to watching the tv show, which seemed to follow the book very closely, and was a much more enjoyable experience for me. 3 stars for the book. 4.5 for the show.
 
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littlezen | 106 other reviews | Jan 24, 2024 |

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Statistics

Works
39
Also by
15
Members
22,278
Popularity
#957
Rating
3.8
Reviews
418
ISBNs
397
Languages
12
Favorited
88

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