... He had told me Mauprin was the same who wrote the 'Tales of the City' series I'd vagely heard of. Always excited by finding a new 'favourite' writer, I serendipidously came across 'Tales of the City' on the 'Book Swap' shelves at my workplace.
About the author
Armistead Maupin was ... Read review
A naive young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world ... more
of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous.
Advantages: Describes the era well, entertaining, very 70s Disadvantages: Sketchy plot, shallow characters, lack of depth and direction
...===
Strangely, Tales of the City is like a soap, you know it's not brain science but it does draw you in. The book hooked me in a way and I'm planning to read more of the series such as 'More Tales of The City' and 'Further Tales of the City'. A good read if you like a soap-style character and plot development satire served a la 1970s. I don't think it really is a book in the classic term. It's what it was meant for originally: a column ... ...glad it has made it into book form for prosperity though.
=== Price / where to buy ===
Bookstores such as Waterstones (£7.99) and online from Amazon used and new £0.01 - £5.99
I first heard about this American author when my boyfriend bought and read Maupin's then latest book 'The Night Listener'. He had told me Mauprin was the same who wrote the 'Tales of the City' series I'd vagely heard of. Always excited by finding a new 'favourite' writer, I serendipidously came across 'Tales of the City' on the 'Book Swap' shelves at my workplace.
About the author
Armistead Maupin was born in 1944 into a conservative family embracing those values and becoming a lawyer. He later changed his views and moved to Califormia where he started working as a journalist for papers such as The Pacific Sun and The San Francisco Chronicle. It was the latter where his column 'Tales of the City' was published from 1976. The book - his first - bearing the same title came out in 1978. He lives with his husband in San Francisco.
The plot
The story follows the intertwining and everyday lives of a bunch of assorted characters ranging from the rich and the working class who all live in San Francisco. Amongst others we meet a small town girl in her twenties from Cleveland, a middle-aged hippy landlady, somehow all of them lonely and without roots which is no surprise as 'no one is from San Francisco'. So why is that they all came here to this iconic and liberal city that is now wallowing in its flower-power ruins and lost illusions?
Writing style
The book is chopped up into bitesize chapters of a few pages long that with their focus alternating between the characters. This style can be offputting as you can find it really hard to get into or the opposite, read it knowing you can put it down any time.
I liked the 70s feel of the book in which it drew a fairly descriptive picture of what life looked like back then including details of the decor of an average pad or public place at the time. The language used is of course San Franciscan 70s, with typical expressions of the era, some gone some still alive but now obviously dated.
Apart from these descriptions the other forte were the dialogs. They are everyday, banale such as the characters while at the same time being the pivoting point of everything happening and forming most of the story as it rolls along.
Characterisation
Personally I instantly warmed to the main protagonists. There are certainly some that are likeable and some that are not, though as I progressed in the book I found them shallow and never fleshy enough to care about especially the characters introduced later in the book. They were banale and miserable and wondered if what the point was in introducing them at all other than to give a 'period' caricature. There seemed to be no genuine feeling in any of them just a desperate clinging to themselves and sometimes to others while each holding onto their 'dark secrets' afraid from being ridiculed and humiliated. I felt there were too many characters for me to choose one then see them develop which they hardly did anyway.
Conclusion
Strangely, Tales of the City is like a soap, you know it's not brain science but it does draw you in. The book hooked me in a way and I'm planning to read more of the series such as 'More Tales of The City' and 'Further Tales of the City'. A good read if you like a soap-style character and plot development satire served a la 1970s. I don't think it really is a book in the classic term. It's what it was meant for originally: a column in a paper to entertain and not much else. I'm glad it has made it into book form for prosperity though.
Price / where to buy
Bookstores such as Waterstones (£7.99) and online from Amazon used and new £0.01 - £5.99
Advantages: Bitchy, Galmorous, Crass, Opinionated, Camp, Glorious, Genius Disadvantages: A bit expensive in some places
...of way. Enter Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City - just like reading poetry on the train without the embarrassment of falling asleep and dribbling on your Burberry! Now you too can seem compassionate, intellectual and erudite without the need for sage chat-up lines, bribes or mystic cantrips.
The Author:
---------------
Armistead Maupin was born on the 13th of May 1944 in Washington D.C. but moved at an early age to North Carolina where he was ... ...sardonic and yet thoughtful way, Tales of the City deals with issues of sex, sexuality, adultery, cheating, lying and scandal in a way which is uplifting, glamorous and thought-provoking. The text, while being cringingly crass and bitchy in places, manages to maintain a level of humanity and care without descending into allegory. The characters, who Maupin clearly adores like children are all likeable in their own ways while being utterly vile in ...
jm160 18.10.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin
Advantages: A book for everyone and stories that truly capture your imagination Disadvantages: There should be many more in the series
...read 4 of the 6 Tales of the City books now, and they are all wonderful... each book is self-contained, but even then they do flow from one to the next and the characters develop so that you will be suprised... especially Anna Madrigal in More Tales... the story will knock your socks off... just as you thought you knew a character, there is a shocking revelation...
What more can I say... I'm in love with Tales of the City, and if I didn't purposely ...
simondh 31.03.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin
- for me anyway, when I went there recently I spent an entire day visiting locations in the book, and very exciting it was too. I hung out in the Castro, searched Russian Hill for Barbary Lane and sat in washington Square, thrilled to bits that the city was as Maupin describes it in these books. For so vivid are his descriptions, and so real his characters that I would have felt quite disappointed if the city did not match the image I had of it from ... ...of which this is the first. It is here that we first meet the tenants of 28 Barbary Lane, the fulcrum location for the whole series. Living here is terminally single Brian, a lawyer turned waiter about to hit a mid-life crisis, lovelorn Michael whose search for love in the city's gay baths seems doomed and eccentric but adorable landlady Anna Madrigal. Into this mix is pitched naive, blonde new-to-towner Mary Anne, who's rapidly adopted into Anna's ...
ImogenW 05.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin
Advantages: a gripping, uplifting read Disadvantages: you won't be able to put it down!
...The series is (in order): Tales of the City, More Tales of the city, Further Tales of the City, Babycakes, Significant Others, and finally, Sure of You. I wouldn't recommend reading them out of order. Wonderful as the writing is, there are too many references to past happenings that you would miss out on. Part of the pleasure of this series is to watch the character's develop over the books and to see loose ends tied up over the series. Often a secret ... ...a few books later. But, don't worry, when the mystery is cleared up, it's always worth the wait! It's never what you expected and but it's always... well, exactly what it should be!
The plot twists are on the verge of surreal yet somehow believable. The characters are eccentric yet feel like familiar friends. They include:
Mary Ann: a smalltown secretary, new to the big city, whose as flummoxed as the reader's are at the eccentricity of her fellow ...
Quirine 04.08.2002 (12.08.2002)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin
Advantages: Easy to read, lots of suprises and twists Disadvantages: You have to buy the sequel to answer some of the unaswered questions.
...series of the sequel,
'More Tales of the City', which I found to be pretty fascinating.
The book centres around the mixed and interlinked lives of a
group of residents of 1970’s San Francisco. There’s a secretary
from Cleveland, an unhappily married man (who has frequent
affairs), his wife, her father (who is harbouring a secret from his
family), a gay man who is unlucky in love, a peculiar landlady
(Mrs Madrigal, who grows cannabis in her ... ...as entertaining as the ‘More Tales of the City’ series, but
that is probably due to the fact that much of the mystery and
element of surprise had been removed by the fact that I knew
what was going to happen next. I would advise other readers to
explore the books/series in order!
If you do get around to reading this book, I would definitely
recommending reading or watching the sequel, ‘More Tales of
the City’. The sequel continues exactly ...
JGB 15.08.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin
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Advantages: fun, great characters and storylines. lots going on Disadvantages: main character forgiven too easily
The Blurb
The Characters that filled the pages of the three earlier Tales Of The City books with love and laughter are at it again, as an ordinary househusband and his ambitious wife discover there's more to making a baby than meets the eye. Unexpected help arrives in the form of a British Monarch, a grieving gay neighbour and an international ring of mail order brides. ArmisteadMaupin has written a comedy of manners for our times.
The Story
The story begins in a limousine in San Francisco with two characters named Elizabeth and Philip, it soon becomes apparent that this is none other than our own queen and husband visiting San Francisco . The queen is not a main character in the book but a running theme throughout.
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Covering ...
Advantages: Funny and moving Disadvantages: Some may find it a bit ?worthy?
I?d probably never have read this book if it wasn?t by ArmisteadMaupin. I?m more of a SF and horror sort of reader, and most reality-based books don?t appeal. Maupin?s ?Tales of the City? series though are great reads. Fast moving, quirky and full of humour and sharp observations. ?Maybe? is his first post-Tales novel. In some ways it?s a departure, and in some ways it will be familiar to readers of the earlier books.
The setting is Hollywood, and the central character is Cadence Roth. She played a leading character in the second greatest film of all time (after ?Star Wars? apparently), ?Mr Woods?. But nobody knows who she is, the reason being she was never seen on screen or publicly credited. Cadence is a dwarf, and she was the one who wore the rubber suit to play the elf of the film?s title. Ten years on she?s still totally ...
Product Information for "Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin" »
Product details
Type
Fiction
Genre
Modern Fiction
Title
Tales of the City
Author
Armistead Maupin
ISBN
0552993840; 0552998761
Manufacturer's product description
San Francisco, 1976. A naive young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous - unmistakably the handwork of Armistead Maupin. See all Product Description
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