Tales of the City

Hampstead Maupin was politically incorrect before anyone had ever heard the term-and unapologetically so. The author writes about the LGBTQ culture in the early 1970's San Francisco when gay was the term that included a transsexual landlady, homosexual male tenant who aspired to be a kept woman, a Fundamentalist set of parents who couldn't see the forest for the trees when they came from Florida to visit their son, a female fashion model who identified as black so that she would be more marketable even though both biological parents were Lily white, a lesbian tenant who wanted to revive her relationship with the black model, a homosexual male OBGYN WHO had a sexual encounter with a virile captain of industry whose wife had just come to see the doctor about getting an abortion, and tying everything together is an innocent young Secretary from Cleveland who quickly discovered that she and her little dog Toto were no longer in Kansas. If you are able to set aside your preconceived prejudices for a short while, you are in for the ride of your life. There are five more books in Maupin's Tales of the City series, but I might just stop where I finished at the end of the first book because the other five could not possibly be as much fun.

Problems with this book are the small font size and the faint ink. Both make is stressful for my eyes.

If you’re familiar with the San Francisco of the 1970’s Maupin’s novel is a sweet reconnection with the city and the kind of people you could encounter on any given day. Just a sweet, funny, poignant stroll.

A wonderful apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco is the setting for this tale of its quirky and engaging residents. Mary Ann Singleton, a wide-eyed Midwestern girl, falls in love with the city while on vacation and never goes back home. Her often comic, often tragic, adventures and the people she connects with provide a somewhat charming tale, but in the end resolves nothing, only sets the stage for coming sequels.I was somewhat disappointed after hearing of this for so long and seeing all the glowing reviews. While it may have been ground-breaking when first published in the 1970's, it is pretty standard fare today and doesn't give the contemporary reader the fresh and innovative look at the gay lifestyle that it gave 35 years ago. That being said, the book is not without its humor and charm, its variety of interesting characters and very human stories. The problem for me was that it only seemed to scratch the surface and not delve very deeply or completely into any one person's life. Also, one of the most tantalizing bits of the story was left dangling and apparently begs the reader to embrace the whole series to find the answer.Because this was originally a newspaper serial, the chapters are short and quick and the action pops rapidly from one character to another. Maupin is a gifted writer who can balance many characters and storylines, but in the end, this one was like cotton candy---enticing, but ultimately unsatisfying.

This is a classic examination of the fluid scene of San Francisco in the late 1970s -- with gay, straight and transsexual men and women organizing their lives around each other, many secrets being progressively revealed (and some kept for the sequels), improbable ways in which some characters meet other characters we had already been introduced to in a different context, and a sarcastic take on the life of the socialites who cling to their privileges and a disappearing society.The book is mostly told through fast-paced dialog between the characters, sometimes a little hard to follow (on the 10th repartee, you may not quite follow who is saying what) and is sometimes too clever -- no one is quite _that_ smart all the time. It sounds like this was written with a stage version in mind, and it did become a TV miniseries. The style is somewhat reminiscent of Noel Coward. It makes for a lot of fun.

Every now and then an author is able to capture the "magic" - flavor may be a more accurate description - of a time and place. Armistead Maupin has done that in _Tales of the City_.Set in San Francisco in the mid-1970's, the lives of his characters cross each other and intertwine. Originally written as a serial in the San Francisco _Chronicle_, it is reminiscent of Dickens: short vignettes with sharply drawn characters, plenty of drama and tension (sexual and otherwise) that frequently leave the reader with a cliff-hanger at the end of the chapter leaving you hungering for more.The writing is witty (every few pages I was laughing out loud - much to the chagrin of those sitting around me at the coffee shop where I was reading most of the book), a bit irreverant (sexuality, gender, race and class are all targets of Maupin's pen), and utterly entertaining. I thorougly enjoyed the stories, and I highly recommend it.

I don't know about you, but if you're reading this note then chances are that you're a bookaholic.I read Tales of the City many years ago and have kept my copy ever since, occasionally picking it up to search out and remind myself of one vignette or another.Over the years I have bought and read more books than I care to imagine. And annually I have a clear out and take piles down to the nearest charity shop. Only the best survive the annual cull.This is one of them and if you haven't read it then there's no time like the present to put things right. A beautifully paced and charming set of stories within a story.

After watching a documentary about Maupin I ordered the first book in the Tales of the City series. Since I was living in California at the time Maupin was writing his newspaper series I thought it would be fun to read his books and relive the past.The book is fantastic, the characters run the gamut from poor to rich, gay to straight, and all searching for meaning in their lives. It was fun going through San Francisco with them and revisiting very familiar places.

Excellent

It is 1976 and Mary Ann Singleton changes her visit to San Francisco into a permanent move. Naïve from her sheltered live in Cleveland, she wants a new life in The City. She finds an apartment at 28 Barbary Lane, and gets drawn into the found family her landlady, Mrs Madrigal, has created from the other tenants there. There is bohemian Mona Ramsey, gay Michael "Mouse" Tolliver and womanising Brian Hawkins. Though we are introduced into this by Mary Ann, this isn’t her story alone. Soon we are following the different lives of the residents of 28 Barbary Lane.Armistead Maupin’s stroke of genius was to set this story within a household of apartments and the tenants who live there, with their unconventional mother-figure in Mrs Madrigal. Through their lives he could write about the different aspects of San Francisco life in the 1970s. The other genius is that not just Maupin populated this novel with a large number of LGBT characters but that he treated them the same as all the other characters. They don’t come to sordid ends or end in pathetic suicides, they just have as messy and complicated lives as the straight characters.This novel was originally written as a newspaper serial and its style still reflects that, short and episodic scenes that rely on dialog, rather than description, to build character and atmosphere. This creates a fast-paced read, peppered frequently with jokes, but from time-to-time I did want a few passages of description just to slow down the pace and give me a moment to breath.This isn’t a historical novel, it was written in the 1970s and gloriously reflects the times. This isn’t a story about bright colours and brighter pop music. It explores the social change and different lifestyles that the 1960s had hinted at. It reminds us how important the 1970s were, especially if you are LGBT. Unfortunately, it does portray some of the 1970’s sexual politics that we now find questionable, it was a different time.Maupin wasn’t the first author to write a multi-character, multi-plot novel, but what he did was fill his novel with characters that had previously not been given a central role, and to portray them in an honest, open and non-sensational way. For so many LGBT people, of a certain age, this was a revolutionary novel. And today, it is still a novel that can hold a reader’s attention for a fascinating journey, with a lot of good jokes along the way.

Perfekt!

Il prodotto è arrivato nei tempo prestabiliti. Comprato per un regalo, speriamo piaccia al festeggiato.

Ecrit à la manière d'une série télé, cette chronique réunit des personnages tous aussi étonnant les uns que les autres. Homosexualité, drogue, amour, amitié, famille ... tout y passe et avec un style fluide et dynamique, ça se lit tout seul. Une petit touche américaine avec la vie à San Francisco dans les années 70-80 m'incite à le recommander à ceux qui connaissent cette ville.La série compte 6 tomes, personnellement j'ai une préférence marquée pour les trois premiers qui constituent un cycle.Je recommande vivement cet ouvrage en anglais qui apporte toute la subtilité de la "VO" à cette série à la fois drôle et touchante.Le niveau de langue est abordable mais comporte beaucoup d'argot.