Michael Tolliver Lives (2007)

Oddly compelling. Dotesn't require having read any of the first six books. Don't think I would read any of the others based on this one, though. ( )

Revisiting on audio 2/2011

This has apparently become one of my go-to audio books.

Revisiting on audio 9/2010

This has become my favorite of all the Tales of the City books. It's such a lovely meditation on aging and love and one's logical family that it rises above the hijinks of the rest of the series. There's a serious and retrospective note here that brings more gravitas to the words. Beautifully done.


7/2007
Mouse has aged since last I saw him, and I'm reassured to report that he's got many of the same worries I do about the process. Cameos from almost everyone from the Tales of the City series. The meat of the book is about relationships and connections. And looking down to find one's grandparent's hands attached to one's own arms. Delightful, winsome, bittersweet and loving. Highly recommended. ( )

This was like coming home to something very familiar and loved. This last novel in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series closes the cycle in a much better way than Sure of You did. No bitter taste, just closure.

We meet up with Micheal Tolliver, HIV survivor who didn't expect to live this long, didn't expect to out live Anna or any of his friends. Mouse has found love again and we get acquainted with his life. Gently, not rushed in any way.

I love Ben, I looove Shawna who grew up to become a blend of the best and worst of her "family".

I'm at peace with the end of this series unlike when I finished Sure of You and was very disappointed in the up in the air ending. ( )

at first i was a little annoyed with the voice this was written in, but by the end it was a nice change from the others in the series. ( )

[b:MICHAEL TOLLIVER LIVES|829511|Michael Tolliver Lives|Armistead Maupin|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178739810s/829511.jpg|18023] fills readers in on what's happened to the Barbary Lane crew from Maupin's Tales of the City series since last we heard from them in 1990's SURE OF YOU. As the title suggests Michael (or Mouse as he was known in the early books) didn't die as a result of AIDS as we might have assumed would happen given where the last book left off. Instead as the book opens Michael's been married for a few years to Ben, Anna Madrigal is still the centre of an odd but loving family and there have been an assortment of hatches, matches and dispatches. As the book goes forward Michael deals with the things that happen when you're in your late 50's.

I thoroughly enjoyed the early books in this series but this one didn't engage me in the same way. Perhaps it's partly because in the intervening 18 years I've changed and am not so taken with the soap opera-ish style of the book but that's only part of the story. This book simply isn't as good as its predecessors. It lacks the wonderful sense of the absurd that the early books incorporated and is far too full of worthy messages to be entertaining. I don't know if he was trying to push some kind of envelope or achieve something else but all the endless details of Michael's sex life did for me was induce boredom. They certainly didn't do a heck of a lot to advance what plot there was. If you take out the sex scenes and the passages that repeat events from the previous books there's not a heck of a lot of story left and the characters are all very under-developed.

When news of this book first surfaced Maupin insisted it wasn't the 7th book in his famous series even though it featured a key character, referenced many events from the series and caught us up with all the original characters. Eventually he was forced to concede the book is part of the series but his reluctance to do so sums up what's wrong with this book. It's trying to be too many things at once and doesn't successfully achieve any of them. He either needed to jump right in and update the series in the same style as the original books or write something completely separate (which he's perfectly capable of doing as THE NIGHT LISTENER indicates). The sequel you have when you're not having a sequel didn't work for me. ( )