A Nostalgic Return to Tales of the City

"Mary Ann in Autumn" (Harper, 2010), by Armistead Maupin, is a nostalgic update of the iconic "Tales of the City" novels of the late 1970s and the 1980s, about an eclectic mixture of young characters, gay and straight, in San Francisco. I well remember when the stories were first serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle, and what a huge hit they were then. Readers, including this one, would eagerly look forward to each day's installment. The stories were current, eccentric, charming, and refreshingly different. What wonderful characters there were in these stories: the young gay man Michael Tolliver; the wide-eyed recent import to the city Mary Ann Singleton; Anna Madrigal, the pot-smoking landlady of the charming little apartment building, who we later found was transgender; the socialite DeDe who realized she was a lesbian; the sweet straight guy, Brian, whom Mary Ann fell for; and many more. The stories captured the excitement of the city, the sexual freedom, and later, the sadness of the AIDS epidemic. Most of all, they captured the caring and camaraderie among the characters, as they became each other's family. In 2007, Maupin published a novel updating us on Michael's life, "Michael Tolliver Lives." Now in this new book we have a similar update on Mary Ann's life, as she returns to San Francisco after 20 years in New York, running away from some personal disasters in her life, and seeking comfort and support from her old best friend Michael and his young husband Ben, as well as from her dear landlady and friend Anna. Various reunions and events ensue, including some suspenseful although a bit peripheral subplots, but again, the main point is the enduring closeness of the friendships made in the characters' youth. The plot and writing are a bit formulaic and even clunky, but the goodwill and the nostalgic appeal, as well as the easy forward movement of the story, overcome such shortcomings. This new novel, like the older ones, is probably of most interest to those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and who remember the earlier "Tales," but the facts that all the books sold well, and were the basis of a very popular TV mini-series, attest to their much wider appeal. Maupin himself still lives in San Francisco and is a beloved and respected local figure.