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.

Pride in the Acclaimed Writers at USF

David Vann, a faculty member in the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco, where I teach, has just won a very prestigious French award, the 2010 Prix Medicis etranger (for foreign writers), often compared to the Pulitzer Prize in the U.S. He won for his novella "Sukwon Island," published in the U.S. as part of the book "Legend of a Suicide." Vann is just one of the USF's faculty's prize-winning, acclaimed writers. In February 2010, poet D. A. Powell, also of the MFA Program, won one of the top awards in poetry, the Kingsley Tufts Award, which comes with a purse of $100,000, for his poetry collection, "Chronic." Poet and English professor Dean Rader recently won the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize for his first book of poetry, "Works and Days." Just a couple of months ago, MFA professor Catherine Brady won the 2010 Northern California Book Award in Fiction for "The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories." Other well-published and frequently honored USF writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction include Aaron Shurin, Susan Steinberg, and Lewis Buzbee. I am proud of these very talented USF colleagues.

Taking the Mystery out of Tipping

A couple of years ago, I ran across a blog titled "Waiter Rant," and started reading it semi-regularly. The author was, at the time, anonymous, and thus able to tell engaging stories from his life as a waiter. His voice was humorous, tough, and philosophical, and his observations were detailed and entertaining. It was not a surprise to find that he was a former seminarian and psychiatric worker, and seemingly quite well read. Soon after, he wrote a book based on his blog, also called "Waiter Rant,"and upon its publication, quit his job and "went public" as Steve Dublanica. I enjoyed that book, which was quite successful, even appearing on the New York Times bestseller list, so when his new book, "Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper's Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity" (Ecco, 2010) appeared, I read it as well. The author frames his information on tipping -- its history, social contexts, and appropriate amounts for different situations -- with his "quest" to learn about tipping through interviewing people all over the country: waiters, of course, but also taxi drivers, doormen, hotel workers, beauticians, barbers, valets, pet groomers, deliverymen, movers, and more. The raciest sections of his journey take place in Las Vegas, where he observes and interviews strippers and sex workers. His framing the book through his own journey gives a structure and interest to the book that a simple list of appropriate tips wouldn't have. His stories are often amusing and even occasionally touching, but the humor of this book is a bit more forced, a bit more jocular, even somewhat crudely so at times, than that of his blog and book. Yet Dublanica is obviously also a thoughtful person, despite his efforts to seem "tough" at times. In any case, this book is a quick read, with some entertaining stories and some helpful information and guidelines about tipping. There are also useful appendices about tipping during the holidays and tipping wedding employees, as well as a thoughtful, sensitively written appendix on the fraught topic of tipping and race.

Thanksgiving Day Thanks for Books and More

Today, Thanksgiving Day in the United States, I am very thankful for health, family, friends, interesting work, living in a beautiful and congenial locale, and much more. And -- on the topic of this blog -- I am exceedingly grateful for books (a special thanks for Jane Austen's novels!), magazines, newspapers (especially the San Francisco Chronicle), academic journals, books-on-tape, publishers, libraries (especially the USF library and the Mill Valley Public Library), bookstores (especially Book Passage, Books Inc., and Green Apple), my reading group, my reading friends (C, M, B, S, and many more), my good fortune in having been able to publish books and journal articles of my own, the opportunity to write about books and all things book-related on this blog (special thanks to Mary, who urged me to start the blog), and you, the readers of this blog!

Who are the "Best" Living American Writers?

The publication of Jonathan Franzen's new book, "Freedom" (about which I posted on 11/8/10, 11/11/10, and 11/13/10) brought about a flurry of articles and reviews speculating on whether Franzen is the new best American writer, now that Bellow, Updike, and others have died. Those who read my posts know I do not agree with this assessment. But the ensuing discussion did make me wonder who could be considered the "best" now. I don't really believe there can be one, or even several, "best" writers, because different great writers pursue different themes, employ different styles, and have different strengths. Also, who is the "best" of a generation may not become clear until all the writers of that generation have died and enough time has gone by to get a clearer perspective. But for fun, I looked around the internet to see which names are most often listed in the category of "best"; I found about 30 names that are consistently cited. Most often mentioned are Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, John Irving, Joyce Carol Oates, Marilynne Robinson, and Thomas Pynchon. Others frequently mentioned include Tom Wolfe, John Irving, Louise Erdrich, Lorrie Moore, Jane Smiley, Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Lethem, T.C. Boyle, Jonathan Safran Foer, Michael Chabon, Anne Tyler, Richard Russo, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jennifer Egan, Barbara Kingsolver, Nicole Krauss, and Jhumpa Lahiri. Readers, what do you think?

"The Widower's Tale"

The title of “The Widower’s Tale” (Pantheon, 2010), by Julia Glass (author of "Three Junes" and "I See You Everywhere"), is reminiscent of Chaucer's writings (but, don't worry, in modern English!), and the novel has the same stuffed-with-overflowing-humanity feeling as his "The Canterbury Tales" does. The Chaucerian theme of pilgrimage is also present: there are geographical, personal and political journeys aplenty. Further, there is plenty of plot, there are plenty of characters, and there is plenty of engagement with current events and social issues. There is much engagement with the question of whether the end justifies the means, when dealing with political and social issues. There is family, there is romance, there is illness, there is suspense, there is drama. There is nature, there is attachment to houses and land. There is pride, loneliness, betrayal, love, friendship, loyalty, caring, and fierce attachment. The reader is pulled into a full, busy life of a community full of intriguing and sometimes quirky characters. One of my favorite things about this book is the easy mixing of characters of various ages, from pre-school to post-retirement. Percy Darling, the 70-year-old widower of the title, lost his wife Poppy in a sad accident some thirty-plus years before, and lives a fairly solitary life in the big old farmhouse outside Boston that he and his late wife had fallen in love with and lived in as young marrieds. He has loving but guarded relationships with his two grown daughters, Clover and Trudy, and is closest to his grandson, Harvard undergraduate Robert. After all these years, he begins a tentative romance with the much younger Sarah, who has a four-year-old son, Rico. Other characters include Robert's politically activist roommate Turo; Ira, a teacher at the nursery school recently opened in the barn next to Percy's house; Ira's life partner Anthony, a lawyer; and Celestino, an immigrant gardener with a past romantic attachment that still haunts him. The stories of all of these characters, and several more, form strands that come together in a dramatic ending, followed by a low-key but healing postscript. We are left with the feeling that -- despite spectacularly bad behavior on the part of a couple of characters, and bad decisions on the part of some other characters -- most people are basically good, and want to do the right thing. This is a life-affirming and thoroughly enjoyable novel.

"Let's Take the Long Way Home"

"Let's Take the Long Way Home" (Random House, 1010), by Gail Caldwell, is subtitled "A Memoir of Friendship." It tells the gripping and touching story of Caldwell's close friendship with fellow writer Carolyn Knapp (author of "Drinking: A Love Story"). They met in the Boston area in midlife, initially drawn together by their mutual love of taking walks with their dogs in a beautiful wooded area. They immediately "clicked," and became inseparable; their commonalities included their writing, their dogs, their athletic endeavors, especially rowing on the Charles River, their shared status as recovering alcoholics, and their fierce independence. Sadly, a few years later, Knapp was diagnosed with and soon died of lung cancer. Caldwell, along with Knapp's fiance and a loyal group of friends, attended Knapp during her illness and deeply mourned her after her death. There are many novels and memoirs about family and about romantic relationships, but not enough about the depth and power of close friendships and the great support, joy, and profound enrichment of one's life that they can bring; this memoir provides a reminder of the enormous gift provided by close and sustaining friendships.