 US first edition cover | |
| Author | Armistead Maupin |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Armistead Maupin |
| Language | English |
| Series | Tales of the City |
| Genre | Novel |
| Published | 2007 |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Hardback |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 0-06-076135-0 |
| OCLC | 76939926 |
| 813/.54 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3563.A878 M53 2007 |
| Preceded by | Sure of You |
| Followed by | Mary Ann in Autumn |
Michael Tolliver Lives (2007) is the seventh book in the Tales of the City series by San Francisco novelist Armistead Maupin.
The novel represents Maupin's return to the Tales of the City characters some 18 years after the sixth book in the series was published. As well as further developing familiar characters, it explores the differences between the San Francisco of the 1980s, bearing the brunt of the developing AIDS crisis, and the city in the first decade of the new millennium. The realities of aging, both distressing and graceful, is a major theme of the book – as well as the generation gap between gay people from the 1970s and 80s and gay people from the 2000s.
In a departure from the third-person style of the original Tales sequence, Michael Tolliver Lives is narrated in the first person by the title character. In the book's opening pages, Michael Tolliver is middle aged and still alive in living HIV-positive for over 20 years now in the year 2006. Michael encounters a half-remembered old flame, prompting him to reflect on his status as a survivor of both the HIV epidemic (which killed many of his peers in the 1980s and 1990s but is now a more treatable chronic illness thanks in part to better medication) and of a San Francisco that has transformed due in large part to the dot com boom. Characters from the original series include Anna Madrigal, the one-time landlady of 28 Barbary Lane; Brian Hawkins and his now-adult daughter Shawna, a pansexual aspiring writer; and Brian's ex-wife Mary Ann Singleton. New characters include Michael's much younger partner Ben, and his transgender co-worker Jake Greenleaf.
Much of the plot's tension derives from the impending death of Michael's elderly mother in Florida, a test case of changes in attitude since she refused to accept Michael's homosexuality in the second Tales book. Several chapters involve a secondary plot thread concerning Michael's relationship with his brother Irwin. Eventually Michael finds himself forced to choose between being present for his mother's last days and attending to an aging Anna, described in the book as part of his "logical" (as opposed to "biological") family.
Although Maupin originally stated that this novel was "NOT a sequel to Tales [of the City] and it's certainly not Book 7 in the series," [1] he later conceded that "I've stopped denying that this is book seven in Tales of the City, as it clearly is ... I suppose I didn't want people to be thrown by the change in the format, as this is a first person novel unlike the third person format of the Tales of the City books and it's about one character who interrelates with other characters. Having said that, it is still very much a continuation of the saga and I think I realised it was very much time for me to come back to this territory." [2]
In a June 2007 Entertainment Weekly article, Maupin said, "I was interested in pursuing the life of an aging gay man, and Michael was the perfect vehicle ... However, as soon as I started writing, I found that, one by one, all the other characters stepped forward and asked to be present. It felt natural, so I went with it." [3]
Maupin calls the book "a smaller, more personal novel than I've written in the past," and noted that "I've tried to focus on the dailiness of life – which I think is very interesting. The small details that add up to our lives, and how people who thought they were going to be dead 20 years ago are facing mortality by natural causes." [4]
Philip Mayard of KQED, the San Francisco Bay Area PBS affiliate, said, "[I]t's a genuine thrill to find out what's been going on in the lives of these and all of Maupin's other relentlessly lovable characters. Even if you've never read any of Armistead's books, Michael Tolliver Lives is still a fabulous read ... This book is Armistead at his very best. In this humble scribe's opinion, there isn't an author around that can, with so few words, capture the essence of a character like Maupin." [5]
David Leavitt of the New York Times observed, "Like its predecessors, Michael Tolliver Lives is a novel only in the loosest sense of the term. The chapters are independent yet interdependent, flowing into one another gracefully while remaining very much singular entities ... All this is rendered with balance, good humor and compassion. And indeed, if I have a complaint about Michael Tolliver Lives, it may be that for all the pleasure it takes in its own transgressiveness, it comes off as a little too nice ... Despite this, the book is great fun to read. Maupin is a master at sustained and sustaining comic turns." [6]
David L. Ulin of the Los Angeles Times said, "Here, we get a glimpse of what Maupin, at his best, has always done: linked the individual and the collective story, unfolded his narrative against the backdrop of larger events. It's the novel as social history, an aesthetic reminiscent of Balzac, and if Maupin doesn't write with that degree of depth, he does know how to seed a story ... Unfortunately ... the novel remains flat in some essential way ... it's hard to escape the feeling that Maupin is drifting across the surface, letting our familiarity with Michael do much of the narrative work ... Maupin goes out of his way to bring back the original Tales of the City characters along with their respective partners and progeny ... Yet, if for longtime readers these interactions add an air of comfort, they also seem vestigial, even forced. This is particularly true of Mary Ann, who centered the original series and broke up the band, as it were, when she left for New York at the end of Sure of You . Her cameo here feels unlikely, gratuitous even, a tacked-on bit of resolution in a narrative universe that has always thrived on an open-ended edge of possibility." [7]
Philip Hensher of The Observer said, "Michael Tolliver Lives is a sad spectacle; the sight of a novelist who remembers that he used to be lovable and trying to remember how he did it ... The charm of the series was always one of escape; in this sad and unappealingly thin book, what we discover is that the pleasures of Arcadia are pretty much like the pleasures of Clapham. That's honestly not what anyone wants to hear." [8]
Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. is an American writer notable for Tales of the City, a series of novels set in San Francisco.
Michael Cunningham is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Cunningham is Professor in the Practice of Creative Writing at Yale University.
Christopher Travis Rice is an American author. Rice made his fiction debut in 2000 with the bestselling A Density of Souls, going on to write many more novels, including The Snow Garden, The Heavens Rise, The Vines, as well as the Burning Girl series. His work spans multiple genres, including suspense, crime, supernatural thriller, and erotic romance. With his mother Anne Rice, he is the co-author of the historical horror novel Ramses the Damned: The Passion of Cleopatra and its sequel, Ramses the Damned: The Reign of Osiris.
Tales of the City is a series of ten novels written by American author Armistead Maupin from 1978 to 2024, depicting the life of a group of friends in San Francisco, many of whom are LGBT. The stories from Tales were originally serialized prior to their novelization, with the first four titles appearing as regular installments in the San Francisco Chronicle, while the fifth appeared in the San Francisco Examiner. The remaining titles were never serialized, but were instead originally written as novels.
KQED is a PBS member television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The station is owned by KQED Inc., alongside fellow PBS station KQEH and NPR member KQED-FM (88.5). The three stations share studios on Mariposa Street in San Francisco's Mission District and transmitter facilities at Sutro Tower.
The EndUp is a nightclub in San Francisco, California. Opened in 1973, the club is located at 6th Street and Harrison in the South of Market district. Known for its status as an afterhours club, the venue has hosted a variety of benefits and events during its time as part of San Francisco's nightlife community.
Marcus D'Amico was a film, television, and stage actor best known for his role as Michael "Mouse" Tolliver in the 1993 Tales of the City miniseries.
Tales of the City is a 1993 television miniseries based on the first of the Tales of the City series of novels by Armistead Maupin.
Tales of the City (1978) is the first book in the Tales of the City series by American novelist Armistead Maupin, originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle. Set in 1970s San Francisco, it follows the residents of a small apartment complex at 28 Barbary Lane, including the eccentric landlady, Anna Madrigal.
More Tales of the City (1980) is the second book in the Tales of the City series by San Francisco novelist Armistead Maupin, originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle. It was adapted into the 1998 miniseries More Tales of the City.
Further Tales of the City (1982) is the third book in the Tales of the City series by San Francisco novelist Armistead Maupin, originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle. It was adapted into the 2001 miniseries Further Tales of the City.
Babycakes (1984) is the fourth book in the Tales of the City series by American novelist Armistead Maupin, originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Significant Others (1987) is the fifth book in the Tales of the City series by American novelist Armistead Maupin. It originally was serialized in the San Francisco Examiner.
Sure of You (1989) is the sixth book in the Tales of the City series by San Francisco novelist Armistead Maupin. The story takes place around the eve of the 1988 presidential election in the U.S., three years after the previous book Significant Others. The book was written as the end of the Tales series and is the antithesis of the first book.
Wesley Taylor is an American stage actor and writer, best known for his work in musical theatre and television.
Mary Ann in Autumn (2010) is the eighth book in the Tales of the City series by San Francisco novelist Armistead Maupin. It was released on November 2, 2010.
The Days of Anna Madrigal (2014) is the ninth book in the Tales of the City series by American novelist Armistead Maupin. It was billed as the final book in the series, although in 2024 Maupin returned to the series with Mona of the Manor.
Logical Family: A Memoir is a 2017 memoir by author Armistead Maupin. In the book, Maupin recounts growing up as a young conservative in the Southeastern United States and becoming a gay writer in San Francisco, California.
Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City is an American drama television miniseries that premiered June 7, 2019, on Netflix, based on the Tales of the City novels by Armistead Maupin. Laura Linney, Paul Gross, Olympia Dukakis, and Barbara Garrick reprise their roles from previous television adaptations of Maupin's books: the original Tales of the City in 1993, and the sequels More Tales of the City (1998) and Further Tales of the City (2001). The series was Dukakis's final television role before her death.
Jennifer Kroot is an American filmmaker whose films include the documentaries It Came From Kuchar (2009) and To Be Takei (2014).