The new Tales book is here! The new Tales book is here!

[Warning: So many spoilers ahead about all of the Tales books. Don’t read if you don’t want to know what happens!]

In 1994, PBS premiered the first Tale of the City series, based on the first book in the series by Armistead Maupin. Set in San Francisco in 1976, it begins with the adventures of Mary Ann Singleton, who spontaneously decides to leave her drab life in Cleveland behind and begin a new life in San Francisco. Finding her way to the apartments at 28 Barbary Lane, run by the wonderfully eccentric landlady Anna Madrigal, Mary Ann finds her way through her new life among the other residents of Barbary Lane, all of whom are trying to forge new lives and create what Maupin would later term a new “logical family” (in contrast to a “biological family”) for themselves.

Even though it was set twenty years earlier–and was very much set in the 1970s of discos and Mucha posters–the experiences of the characters trying to figure out how to grow into their adult selves, how to define themselves in the context of their newly chosen careers and logical families resonated strongly with my friends and me. 

I adored the series. Each week after an episode aired on PBS, my Aunt Julie would call me from her home in Tacoma, Washington, and we would freak out over that week’s episode. What was Anna’s secret? Isn’t Beachamp a bastard? Wasn’t Mona WONDERFUL in that meeting with Beauchamp? Isn’t Michael Mouse just THE BEST?

Aunt Julie had been in San Francisco some in the 1970s, and these were her people. We both inhaled all of the novels that Maupin had written in the series then, and we read them all as new ones came out. The novels are a wonderful balance between relationship-driven character development and outlandish episodic plots. In one novel, Jim Jones has faked his death and is trying to kidnap DeeDee’s children. Another features an Episcopalean cannibal cult (this one is where I learned the word “transubstantiation”). And having lived in Cincinnati and known several people who were devotees of the annual Michigan Womyn’s Festival, I especially loved the story set at the fictional “Wimminwood” camp.

Maupin’s strength is that he’s able to simultaneously convey humor and humanity even in the most ludicrous situations. And at the heart of all of these novels is the importance of creating and ...