The Days of Anna Madrigal

Rating: 4.8* of five

The Publisher Says: Suspenseful, comic, and touching, the ninth and final novel in Armistead Maupin's bestselling Tales of the City series follows one of modern literature's most unforgettable and enduring characters—Anna Madrigal, the legendary transgender landlady of 28 Barbary Lane—on a road trip that will take her deep in her past.

Now a fragile ninety-two years old and committed to the notion of "leaving like a lady," Anna Madrigal has seemingly found peace in the bosom of her "logical family" in San Francisco: her devoted young caretaker, Jake Greenleaf; her former tenant Brian Hawkins; Brian's daughter Shawna; and Michael Tolliver and Mary Ann Singleton, who have known and loved Anna for nearly four show more decades.

Some members of Anna's family are bound for the otherworldly landscape of Burning Man, the art festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada where sixty thousand revelers build a temporary city (Michael calls it "a Fellini carnival on Mars") designed to last only one week. Anna herself has another Nevada destination in mind: a lonely stretch of road outside of Winnemucca where the sixteen-year-old boy she used to be ran away from the whorehouse he then called home. With Brian and his beat-up RV, she journeys into the dusty, troubled heart of her Depression-era childhood, where she begins to unearth a lifetime of secrets and dreams, and to attend to unfinished business she has long avoided.

My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt, the thirty-first and (blessedly) last, is a book that reminds you of someone special.

It took so long to find you...and now I don't want it to change. I want it all set in amber. I want us and nobody else in the most selfish way you can imagine. I can't help it--I'm old-fashioned. I believe marriage is between a man and a man.

My Gentleman Caller. My own dear love.

A series of novels spanning 40 years (give or take) is bound to cope with the facts of aging, exactly as the author himself is. The dealing is by doing, as it is in every other facet of life. At least, of a life that one would want to live.

Doing something has always been Mrs. Madrigal's way. It takes some doing to change one's body from male to female. It takes some doing to create a life that doesn't simply pass by. It takes a lot of doing to love anyone on the surface of the earth, doing and doing and doing. Anna Madrigal has never not done her part.

Endings frightened me for many years. They never, ever seem to look the way I want them to. I can't fathom why it took me so very long to learn that endings aren't real. The story never ends, it never begins either, it simply is. So this final installment in a series of novels I've never not set store by should have me shaking in my boots.

I'm so happy I've left the party. I'm content to be right here, right now. Anna Madrigal helped me see that more clearly than any actual physical person I've ever known: Here is where you are, so be here.

It helps to know, like Mrs. Madrigal, that all times are now, and all places are here, it's just perspective that causes things to look so different.

I've loved growing up with these books, seeing them in different ways at different times in my life, loving and hating and understanding the complex people that weave in and out of the tales. Forgiving them. Becoming so much like them that it scares me sometimes. And now, aspiring to be Mrs. Madrigal after years as Mary Ann, Mouse, Brian, and *shudder* feeling like Norman.

None of which will make even a little bit of sense to the uninitiated. Never mind, loves, it's all still there. If and when you want to find it, Barbary Lane will be there, a Brigadoon of deeply felt and nourishingly offered drafts from the Well of Loneliness.

It was like school spirit back in high school. He didn’t have it then, and he didn’t have it now. To him, the biggest advantage of being queer was being queer.

We're all queer in our own ways. Drink it down and savor it. Try not to piss it away. show less

In his final (so sad) installment of TALES OF THE CITY, Maupin finally gives us the full backstory of Anna Madrigal -- her early years growing up as Andy in her mother's brothel, her first love, and the reason for her adoption of Madrigal as a surname. If you loved this series, be sure to read this one. It's the ideal capper.

It's one more chance to reconnect with all the characters Maupin has created over 40 years -- happily married Michael, his husband Ben, Mary Ann Singleton, Brian and his new partner, Shawna and, of course, Anna herself. And there are satisfying references to the dearly departed (Dr. Jon Fielding, Mona, and Connie Bradshaw to name just three).

Anna is again everyone's favorite mother figure, winning over strangers, show more and always responding with love and support -- in short, the most delightful nonagenarian you could ever hope to meet. Now facing her own mortality, Anna has a few loose ends to tie up from her past and relies on her chosen "family" members to help.

So sad to read the end of all these humorous and delightful stories. Thank you Mr. Maupin! show less

This may be the last in the series of Tales of the City stories, although we've heard that before. Recent novels in the series focused on characters Michael Tolliver and Mary Ann Singleton, and this volume follows the model by centering on Anna Madrigal, now 92 and increasingly fragile. Unusual for the series, there are extensive flashback scenes to Mrs. Madrigal's childhood as Andy Ramsey, growing up in a brothel in the Nevada desert. Pretty much every other character is planning and eventually attending the Burning Man Festival, with it not being much of a surprise that they will all come together. Brian's new wife Wren offers some wry commentary on the series' penchant for unlikely coincidence and general nuttiness, which also show more doubles as exposition for anyone not able to remember incidents in the early books. Having Kate Mulgrew narrate the audiobook is the most perfect casting decision since Olympia Dukakis played Anna Madrigal in the film miniseries. It's not a perfect book - Maupin uses on of his favorite tricks, a serious Michael Tolliver illness to create tension - but if it is the final book, it is a good farewell to a cast of beloved characters. show less

Stories, in the end, are personal, and because of that reviews tend to be bullshit.

The Tales of the City Saga helped me Come Out 25 years ago. It taught me the meaning of family - real family - although I constantly struggle in effectively communicating that today. Nearly 18 years later, the series would teach me how to begin growing old, and, in a way that I find eerie to this day, I would find myself living a part of the Tales Saga through my last great relationship. You cannot review something like this. You're too close. It means too much.

All the other reviews have mentioned that this is the End of the Saga. Maybe. Perhaps it can be, and if so, perhaps Armistead did end it in the best way - an ending without an ending. Because, face show more it, that is so life, and Tales of the City is about nothing more than life, if a bit oddly presented. There is nothing here that mandates that the stories end, although, perhaps now, they can.

In the words of Anna herself, "I've said all I need to say to each and every one of you. [...] It's in you now for good. [...] There's nothing you have to say, nothing you have to do...and nowhere I have to be. It's all free time from here on out."

In the end, while Armistead is a good writer, I think this book, more than the others, needs the others to work. You cannot read it alone. Oh, it makes sense - the reading makes sense - I think, but without its history I don't think its possible to communicate its emotional depth.

If you have read Tales of the City, if you are caught up, then read this book. If you have not, don't start here. Your journey starts 2073 pages before and 38 years ago. show less

In his final (so sad) installment of TALES OF THE CITY, Maupin finally gives us the full backstory of Anna Madrigal -- her early years growing up as Andy in her mother's brothel, her first love, and the reason for her adoption of Madrigal as a surname. If you loved this series, be sure to read this one. It's the ideal capper.

It's one more chance to reconnect with all the characters Maupin has created over 40 years -- happily married Michael, his husband Ben, Mary Ann Singleton, Brian and his new partner, Shawna and, of course, Anna herself. And there are satisfying references to the dearly departed (Dr. Jon Fielding, Mona, and Connie Bradshaw to name just three).

Anna is again everyone's favorite mother figure, winning over strangers, show more and always responding with love and support -- in short, the most delightful nonagenarian you could ever hope to meet. Now facing her own mortality, Anna has a few loose ends to tie up from her past and relies on her chosen "family" members to help.

So sad to read the end of all these humorous and delightful stories. Thank you Mr. Maupin! show less

When Armistead Maupin is at his best, he is utterly remarkable. Once again, he has captured the zeitgeist with his description of life at Burning Man, the iconic experience of this generation. I feel as though I were there, for a little while.

This installment starts off slowly, but soon sucks you in with the quintessential Maupin love-of-place and surprises. By the halfway point, you're firmly on the carousel and just can't stop the ride till the thrilling and stunningly beautiful finale.

For this ninth instalment of Tales of the City, Maupin borrows the main plot device of Significant Others (a festival with two parallel road trips) and one of that book's more memorable characters, mixing these elements in with memories of Mrs Madrigal's adolescence. Still lively and entertaining, but nothing very sensational this time, none of the campaigning and overcoming of taboos he was doing when he started with these characters 39 years ago(!), and perhaps also not quite as many jokes as there used to be. But we have no right to complain about that. If the subjects he writes about aren't pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable in light fiction any more, it's largely due to the fact that he himself redefined those boundaries, show more back in the seventies when he first took us to 28 Barbary Lane. There are certainly still battles to be fought, but Maupin has a perfect right to leave that to someone else, whilst he focuses on entertaining us and augmenting his pension. Long may he live to enjoy it! show less