The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 19 August 2008
by Armistead Maupin
There are six books in the original Tales of the City series. There is a recent seventh (Michael Tolliver Lives) that takes the series in a stylistically different direction. There are rumors there will be more volumes in this ongoing saga. This book, however, is the sixth, and as such, it more or less closes the opening chapters of the story. Way back in Tales of the City, we met Mary Ann Singleton, fresh from Cleveland and discovering the wild and wide-open ways of life in San Francisco in the mid 1970s. Has she discovered her true home, or did San Francisco merely act as an agent of her ambition? In Sure of You, this question gets a kind of an answer. Mary Ann has been offered a plum of a job hosting a syndicated talk show out of New York City. The main story of this novel is how Maupin's cast of characters reacts to this unsettling change in their cozy circle of friends, even if none of them lives at 28 Barbary Lane by the end of 1988. Anna Madrigal has gone off to Lesbos Island in a kind of pilgrimage with Mona Ramsey. Beloved Michael Tolliver has settled down in an earthquake shack in the Castro with his lover Thack. Brian and Mary Ann still live in a Russian Hill tower with their adopted daughter, Shawna. The character that is the city of San Francisco itself takes a more gentle back seat to their stories. It's the late 80s. AIDS has decimated the community, and as the gay population ages, there is a sense of conflict between their activism and their desire for some sense of cozy security. Maupin's writing casts a sympathetic and compassionate light on the mellowing of his characters while also raising some alarm at growing complacency in the community. He is also, in a sense, wrapping up some of the story of his characters, and there is a mellow and melancholy tone to much of the book. The book probably doesn't stand well on its own, but more as a part of the grand arc that Maupin created throughout the remarkable six-book Tales... series. The arc traces the maturing of his characters and their author, and this book, as always written with humor and compassion, brings the reader a low-key closure. (Until that reader moves on to Michael Tolliver Lives, which was released some 18 years later.)
Also by Maupin: [Tales of the City]
[More Tales of the City]
[Further Tales of the City]
[Babycakes]
[Significant Others]
[Michael Tolliver Lives]
[Mary Ann in Autumn]
See also: [Armistead Maupin by Patrick Gale]